Outside the
Bubble
News highlights
from the past week
Texas Gay Marriage Ban
Deemed Unconstitutional
On Wednesday, U.S. District
Judge Orlando Garcia ruled that
the ban on same-sex marriage
in Texas is unconstitutional. Citing Supreme Court precedent,
Garcia issued a preliminary injunction on the state’s ban. Garcia wrote that the 2005 amendment to the state’s constitution
that defined marriage as a union
between a man and a woman
denied gay couples the right to
marry and demeaned their dignity for no legitimate reason.
Keystone XL Pipeline Complies with Federal Law
A Washington, D.C. environmental firm confirmed on
Wednesday that contractors of
the pipeline are in compliance
with federal regulations. The
report revealed that some staff
members who worked on the
State Department report had
done previous work with the
pipeline operator, TransCanada.
While the contractor and State
Department are in compliance
with federal law, the report read
that the State Department’s process for hiring outside contractors could still be improved, leaving Keystone opposition warring.
Russian Opposition Leaders
Incarcerated
A municipal court jailed
several Russian opposition leaders on Tuesday. Among these
leaders was blogger and activist
Aleksei A. Navalny, who resisted
arrest during a protest that led
to the detention of more than
400 protesters. Monday’s protest
was prompted by the sentencing of eight activists accused of
attacking the police during a
2012 demonstration against current president, Vladimir Putin.
Though Russia released several
high profile prisoners prior to
the Winter Games, experts worry
that authorities will resume the
crackdown after the games.
Sources: The Huffington Post and
The New York Times

Elyria Public School Gets Experimental
Elizabeth Dobbins
Staff Writer
Franklin Elementary School
in Elyria is locally notorious for
its low test scores. But beginning
next fall, the school will embark
on a five-year program to enact
experimental education reforms.
With a grant from the locally
based Stocker Foundation, Franklin plans to extend the instructional day by 45 minutes, as well
as increase the use of technology, incorporate more art in the
classroom, raise parental involvement and implement a preschool
program.
Franklin teacher and intervention specialist Cynthia Boyd said
she believes that the extra time
will positively impact the students’ learning.
“I think they’re going to do a
great deal of good for our kids at
Franklin,” said Boyd. “Forty-five
minutes is a long time to … have
extra practice in reading or math
or whatever skills our students really need to work on. The 45 minutes are going to be a lot of time
to work with kids that really need
the extra help to get up to grade
level.”
Franklin’s faculty has also expressed strong support for the
reforms, particularly the extended
school day.
“One of the really neat caveats

Ms. Boyd, a teacher at Franklin Elementary School, works with a small group of students. This year, Franklin will
implement a set of experimental education reforms in response to perennially low test scores.
Courtesy of Lisa Licht

to this is that the teachers voted
overwhelmingly, at 82 percent, to
extend the day,” said Schloss. “We
had to have a vote and they voted
to extend their work day because
they know it’s what’s best for
kids. The more time on task, the
more time they have to work with
these children, the more prepared
they’re going to be.”
Oberlin City School District
received a $28,668 grant from the

See page 2

foundation in 2010 in order to
fund literacy programs such as
KinderCamp, America Reads, as
well as Eastwood Elementary’s
Read at Home and Book Buddies.
The grant was among 20 others
totaling over $500,000 aimed at
improving literacy in Northeast
Ohio.
Franklin’s standardized test
scores repeatedly come in below
the state average. In 2013, 53 per-

cent of third grade students were
considered proficient on the math
portion of the Ohio Achievement
Assessments. This marks an increase from 48 percent over 2011,
but scores are still well below the
78 percent state average.
Franklin also struggled on the
reading portion, with only 50 percent of students reaching proficiency
See Local, page 4

Under Review: The Paper of Record Takes a Look in the Mirror
Rosemary Boeglin
Editor-in-Chief
In this installment of “Inside Campus Publications,” the Review turns the critical lens onto
its own journalistic and organizational practices. This April marks The Oberlin Review’s 140th
anniversary, and to properly honor the legacy of
one of the nation’s longest-running student newspapers, its staff is using this occasion to assess
the publication’s ability to live up to its role as
newspaper of record for both the city of Oberlin
and Oberlin College.
College President Marvin Krislov put it
frankly: “One of your questions was about diversity and inclusion, and I would just say —
and I know you’re the Review — but I don’t think
the Review does particularly well with that.”
In last week’s edition, the Review’s Editorial Board outlined a few of the publication’s
deficiencies, including its failure to reflect the
diversity of the Oberlin community that it purports to represent.
A diminished range of journalistic perspec-

tives accompanies this lack of diversity among
staff members and contributors. Ale Requena
Ruiz, College senior and production editor for
The Grape, said that the presentation of limited
perspectives is not a problem unique to Oberlin’s “alternative” newspaper. Recalling a piece
printed in the Review, Requena Ruiz said,
“It talked about [immigration and border
control] in a removed way that’s possible only
for people who aren’t affected by those issues
in reality, which is a lot of people writing about
a lot of things in The Grape and in the Review.”
Largely white and cisgender, the Review’s
pool of contributors and editors fails to mirror
the myriad of identities found in the Oberlin
community. According to Jan Cooper, professor
of Rhetoric & Composition and English and the
Review’s faculty advisor, it is the duty of the Review to reflect the community at large.
“I strongly believe that — especially because
the Review is the publication of record for
campus — that the whole campus community
should be covered,” Cooper said. “And of course
you can’t cover the whole community in every
single issue, but that there should be attention

Eyes on the
Prize

RIO to Host
Symposium
The group will host a
investment-centered
discussion on March 8.

paid to South Campus as much as to North
Campus, to speak metaphorically.”
Alison Williams, associate dean for academic
diversity and director of the Multicultural Resource
Center, agreed.
“I think it’s important to have a wide range of
perspectives represented no matter what because,
especially in a community where you have people
from all different backgrounds, you want everybody to have a voice, and you want everybody to be
represented,” she said.
“So I think it’s very important to have as diverse
a community as possible participate in that vehicle, understanding that at some points, different
communities may choose to have their own publication or radio show, whatever, to give particular
strength to their unified voice and their experience. But if you have a paper like the Review, which
is all-campus, meant for the entire community,
then [it has] to have that community represented
among the staff.”
In her explanation of the publication’s responsibility, Cooper echoed Requena Ruiz’s emphasis on
See The Oberlin Review, page 4

from the

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All of the content you see here is also
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News

Page 2

Kasich Expands
Medicaid Benefits

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

News Brief: College Adopts New Policy
on Undocumented Applicants

Madeline Peltz

Rachel Weinstein
News Editor

After Ohio’s Department of Medicaid and
the Controlling Board granted Governor John
Kasich’s request to use $2.56 billion of federal
funding to expand Medicaid’s accessibility in
Ohio, changes to the cost and structure of residential health care plans have became apparent in more remote residential areas. In Lorain
County, 44,000 people are now eligible for Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
Clients served by Oberlin Community Services, a local non-profit, are largely eligible for
these welfare programs.
“I know people [for] whom it’s almost unaffordable now to get health care. They have to do
something, because starting next year there’s
going to be pretty hefty fines [for failure to enroll
in the new marketplaces established under the
Affordable Care Act],” said Kathy Burns, director
of Client Services at OCS. “I saw the breakdown
of some of the fines — just the first-tier fine was
$700 for next year.”
According to Lorain County Commissioner
Ted Kalo, a new statewide computer enrollment
program for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries should make the expansion as accessible
as possible for those who need it. The cost of

Months after journalist and activist Jose
Antonio Vargas spoke on the experience of
undocumented immigrants in the U.S., the College announced Wednesday that it would now
consider undocumented students as domestic candidates for admission. This means that
the new policy, unanimously approved by the
Board of Trustees earlier this month, considers
undocumented applicants U.S. citizens rather
than international applicants. The policy reads:
“Oberlin College considers undocumented
students as domestic candidates for admission. Students who qualify for “deferred action”
and have achieved DACA status (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) are particularly encouraged to apply.”
Ethan Ableman
Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Debra Chermonte explained that placing them in the international pool
is a “miscategorization” because most undocumented students have spent the majority of their lives in the U.S., have attended U.S.
schools and are fluent in English. In an interview with the Office of Communications, Chermonte said, “We have always welcomed
applications from undocumented students. But because they are not U.S. citizens, we had, like most colleges, required them to apply
as international students. This [new] policy aligns our current practices with the public language we use to describe Oberlin’s policy
with respect to undocumented students.”
In 2012, President Obama signed a memo permitting “deferred action for childhood arrivals” for specific undocumented adolescents who have pursued education or civil service. While Oberlin does not require DACA for undocumented applicants, the new
policy makes admission to the College more accessible to undocumented students by permitting student employment and safer
domestic and international travel.

See Accessibility, page 4

RIO Investment Symposium To Seek Community Consensus

College junior Andrew Follman leads students at a RIO meeting on Thursday night. The organization will host a responsible investing symposium on March 8 and 9.
Zoë Madonna

James Koblenzer
Although it was excluded from this month’s
College-sponsored Oberlin Symposium on Divestment, the student-led Responsible Investing
Organization will host its own symposium on
March 8 and 9 to discuss community standards
for ethical investment in hopes of forming a consensus on investment practices.
“Our money should be invested in companies that operate legally and ethically, not [companies] that exploit human labor and [contribute] heavily to environmental degradation, such

as fossil fuel companies,” said College junior and
RIO member Andrew Follman.
Founded in the spring of 2012, RIO is a
student-led group dedicated to increasing accountability and transparency in investment
practices.
“We are trying to make the Oberlin community more aware of the ethical implications of its
investments,” said Follman.
Although an ambitious goal for a single
symposium, RIO has invited numerous student
groups, guests and an open forum for students
and community members to participate in the

conversation. Organizations such as Oberlin
Anti-Frack, Oberlin Zionists, J Street U and Students for a Free Palestine have been invited to reinforce RIO’s mission to “have no public political
stance,” according to College first-year and RIO
member Ema Sagner. The organization also
hopes its upcoming symposium will represent
“what Oberlin wants,” as the event will be open
to the entire community.
RIO recently determined its “five percentone percent” plan; the organization’s goal is “to
have five percent of the school’s endowment invested responsibly. Of that five percent, we want
one percent to go to impact investment, which is
direct investment for community development,”
said Sagner.
According to Follman and Sagner, what will
ultimately be deemed “responsible” will depend
on the Policy Committee’s reception to the workgroup discussions that will take place during the
two-day long symposium. The event will also include four guest alumni lecturers who specialize
in environmental and public health investment
projects and policy.
Throughout campus, concerns have been
raised over RIO’s endorsement of “shareholder
activism.” The term refers to the belief that “an
investor’s choice of whether to invest or not invest in a company is a form of political power”
according to College sophomore Ziya Smallens,
a RIO member and student senator. According
to Smallens and College sophomore Ben Hyams,
the controversy derives from a campaign to divest from Israeli companies and boycott Israeli
goods.
“I know many members of RIO, and I know

that their private views lie with divestment,” said
Hyams. “It is my concern that those who campaign most zealously for Israeli divestment are
perceived to have the prevailing opinion rather
than to simply be the loudest people. This is a
legitimate concern that many students and faculty members may share.”
As RIO’s initiatives remain in their early stages, the debate regarding responsible investment
persists throughout the community.
“It’s not that simple,” said Smallens. “Divestment is in many ways the most crude form of
socially responsible investing. You’re just withdrawing money; better to use your money as
leverage to encourage more ethical behavior on
the part of multinational corporations, Israeli
or otherwise. Besides, if it is a true community
standard, it will not be one that excludes the
voices of Jewish students. That is why we invited
so many student activist groups.”
“I am very interested in what the administration has to say,” said Hyams. “Is it that there are
no morals with money? I think their perspective
is probably more nuanced than that.”
According to The Source, “Oberlin College’s
Endowment has a highly diversified portfolio
with allocations to hedge funds, private equity
and real assets, which include venture capital,
real estate and private energy.”
Many hope the organization’s upcoming
symposium will clarify both the position of the
administration and that of RIO. One poignant
criticism of RIO that will probably remain is this:
“They need a new name,” said College sophomore Eli Steiker-Ginzberg. “It sounds like the
city in Brazil. Confuses me.”

The Review is not aware of
In “McCrae
Includes Personal
Struggles
any corrections
this week.
in Poetry” (Feb. 21), McCrae’s parents
were
inaccurately
described
as racially
The
Review strives
to print
all
prejudiced.
Rather,
the artist as
waspossible.
raised by
information
as accurately
hisIfgrandparents,
who were
fact white
you feel the Review
hasin
made
an
supremacists.
error, please
send an e-mail to
managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

News

Page 3

Off the Cuff: Shahzeen Attari, expert on psychology of resource consumption
Shahzeen Attari, assistant professor at the School of Public and Enivronmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, sat down with the
Review this week to talk about energy
consumption, motivations in social
dilemmas and the paper she will publish on Monday.
Your study has to do with energy
curtailment versus energy efficiency improvements within the
realm of public perception and
how that same perception applies
to water usage. Can you talk a little bit about that?
What we found was — and this
is a paper that’s coming out this
Monday, so we’re really excited —
that when people are asked what
the single most effective thing they
can do to decrease their energy
consumption, roughly 20 percent of
our participants said turning off the
lights. While turning off the lights
is good, it’s not the single most effective thing you can do. There are
more efficient actions, like carpooling with others, using public transit,
changing the thermostat settings on
your thermostat, so on and so forth.
But something very simple, easy
and effortless comes to mind, such
as turning off the lights. When you
look at water, the single most effective thing, roughly 40 to 50 percent
of our participants said shorter
showers. Shorter showers are certainly good, much more effective
than turning off the lights, but again
as the single most effective thing, it’s
actually retrofitting your toilets. So
what we find is that when people
ask what the single most effective
thing they can do [is] they just think
about curtailment, which is doing
the same behavior but just doing
less of it, as opposed to switching
to efficiency, which is keeping the

Thursday, Feb. 20
9:36 a.m. Officers requested
an ambulance for a student who
slipped on the ice and injured
her leg. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for
treatment.
10:50 p.m. Campus Dining
Services staff members reported
that they discovered a small plastic baggie containing a green leafy
substance consistent with marijuana. The baggie was turned over
to the Oberlin Police Department.

Friday, Feb. 21
1:15 a.m. Oberlin Inn staff

NPR, we’re not required to donate
to NPR, but why is it that so many
people donate to NPR? Why do so
many people donate blood? Why
is it that people conserve energy or
buy energy efficient technologies?
All of these are social dilemmas because your private interest, which
is your own self-interest, is at odds
with collective interest. What I’m
curious about is what motivates us
to cooperate and do the action for
the collective good versus be selfish
and not do the action for the collective good? That’s what I’m working
on right now: trying to understand
what factors motivate and demotivate action in social dilemma
settings.

Shahzeen Attari, an environmental scientist who visited Oberlin to give a talk
titled “Pubic Perceptions of Electricity and Water Use.”
Courtesy of Oberlin College

same behavior but just switching
technology. So that’s the big upfront
finding between the two.
If people did know that energy
efficient improvements were better for the environment than energy curtailments, do you think
that would change their actions?
That’s a really fascinating question. If we think about why we don’t
act, we can think about two different models. One is the information
deficit model, and one is the motivation deficit model. In the first
model, we don’t know, therefore we
don’t do. We lack the information.
In the second model, we know, but
we’re just not motivated enough to
do it. So I actually think that with
energy and water, both of these

members reported that an intoxicated, disorderly male was at the
Oberlin Inn. Members of the Oberlin Police Department responded
to the scene, and the male’s family
was contacted to pick him up.
2:49 a.m. Officers and members
of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Dascomb
Hall. The cause of the alarm was water leaking into one of the building’s
detectors. An electrician responded
and made repairs.
11:59 p.m. A resident of Harvey
House reported a possible party on
the second floor, and that she had
observed several students urinating on the outside of the building.
When officers arrived, they observed several students exiting the
building. The building was checked
and found to be party-free.

Saturday, Feb. 22

models come into being. We might
not know what is very effective, and
we might not be motivated enough
to change the behavior. We need to
figure out what the motivation and
information landscape looks like in
order to change behaviors.
One of your current interests is
factors that motivate action in
social dilemmas. What are some
of the factors that you’ve come
across while exploring this topic?
Let me start with what is a social
dilemma. A social dilemma is where
a private interest is at odds with
collective interests. So for example,
donating blood. It hurts to donate
blood; you stick a needle in yourself,
but it’s for the greater good. Donating to NPR. You and I can listen to

3:52 a.m. Officers and members
of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Union
Street Housing Complex apartment.
The cause of the alarm was smoke
from cooking bacon. The area was
cleared of smoke and the alarm was
reset. A city of Oberlin crosswalk
sign and a College sign were also
found in plain view in the apartment. Both items were confiscated.

Sunday, Feb. 23
1:48 a.m. Officers responded
to a report of vandalism on the
second floor of Langston Hall. The
emergency lights were pulled from
the ceiling and the exit light was
broken. An electrician responded
to cap the exposed wires.
2:29 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student at Dascomb
Hall who was ill from alcohol con-

And what have you found?
Well what we’ve found is that
people are really afraid of needles.
And the second reason was ineligibility. Most people think they’re
ineligible because of weight issues,
prior tattoos, sexual orientation;
you name it. That’s the way they rationalize it. When they’re asked why
they do or don’t donate, that’s what
we find. The main reason that people do donate is because they think
it’s the right thing to do. Because
it gives them warm glow; they feel
good about themselves. We’re actually looking at five separate social
dilemmas, and we’re trying to look
at within participants, what is the
reason that people donate or do
not donate, or contribute or do not
contribute.
There are tons of theories about
how the public should best
regulate their energy use. As
somebody who has explored the
hard science aspect as well as
the social aspect, what’s your
view of how energy should be
regulated?
That’s a great question. Topdown regulations are great, but we

sumption. The student told officers
that he was feeling better, and he
was able to answer questions and
walk on his own. The student was
escorted back to his room and advised to call Safety and Security if
he needed any more assistance.
10:36 a.m. Officers responded
to a report of vandalism on the first
floor of East Hall. The vandal(s)
pulled down the exit sign and broke
several ceiling tiles. A maintenance
technician responded for repairs.

Monday, Feb. 24
1:20 p.m. Officers responded to
a report of a bagged smoke detector found at a Union Street Housing
Complex apartment. Officers also
observed several pipes, a grinder
and burnt candles in plain view. The
plastic was removed and the items
were confiscated and turned over

haven’t had a lot of top-down regulations in the climate change area,
especially in regards to individual behavior. So let’s take top-down regulations and say that they’re extremely
effective, but I can’t really study
them because they haven’t come to
pass, so let’s put them aside. Then
let’s look at soft regulations, things
like changes in default. For example,
I can nudge you in a paternalistic
way and influence your behavior.
And that has actually shown to be
extremely effective. That’s something people are actively studying. I
can also use social norms to change
your behavior. For example, Bob
Cialdini is a preeminent social psychologist who basically uses social
comparisons. Like, if you know how
much energy you use compared to
your most energy efficient neighbor,
and I can either give you a smiley
face if you’re using less and a frowny
face if you’re using more. And people are actually very responsible to
these types of mailings, so much so
that they formed a company called
OPower that uses social comparisons to get people to decrease energy consumption by two percent, and
it was maintained over a very long
time. Two percent sounds small,
but if you were to ramp it up to the
whole United States, that would be
a lot of energy. Then there’s also voluntary action. There are ways that
you can create new social norms;
they’re hard, and they’re very hard
to predict. But that would be a sort
of fascinating place to look at. But
right now there’s a lot of active work
on these soft regulations, on these
paternalistic regulations, trying to
nudge people in the right direction.
And how do you improve that? [You]
provide people better information,
or better motivation to incorporate
some of these actions.
Interview by Maddie Stocker,
News editor

to the Oberlin Police Department.
10:59 p.m. Officers responded
to an anonymous call that reported
witnessing someone smoking on
the second floor of Fairchild House.
The occupants of the room in question were contacted and both admitted to smoking marijuana in
the room. Two baggies containing
a substance consistent with marijuana and a device used for smoking marijuana were confiscated.
The items were turned over to the
Oberlin Police Department.

Tuesday, Feb. 25
3:03 p.m. Officers responded to
assist a student who fell down the
stairs at Rice Hall, hitting her head.
An ambulance was requested and
she was transported the student to
Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

News

Page 4

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Local Elementary Aims to Improve Literacy Rates
Continued from page 1
in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, this number improved to 64 percent.
Ann Schloss, the director of Academic Services at Elyria City School District, said that the
various reforms applied to Franklin might also
be implemented elsewhere around the district.
“Franklin is [the school] that has the highest need academically, so we thought this was
the best place to start,” said Schloss. “A lot of the
things that we’re going to put into place [are]
in Franklin, though we will be doing bits and
pieces of them all around the district. We really
want to make Franklin a model school and the
preschool units model preschool units. So once
we have those in place, absolutely we’re going
to look at ways to spread that throughout the
district.”
Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee, an

Ohio education reform passed in the spring of
2012, prevents students who do not score at
reading proficiency level from graduating the
third grade.
In order to improve scores and academic
achievement, Schloss and Franklin Principal
Lisa Licht worked together to propose a set of
reforms.
“Our needs … [are mainly based on] technology — incorporating it into the curriculum
and getting the [students] ready for the technology that they [will] need to be prepared for
later years — and better prepared students in
kindergarten,” said Licht. “Also, our teachers
always telling us we need more time. We put
everything that we set out as a need into one
grant proposal.”
The school currently runs a kindergarten
skills clinic during the summer and, in an effort
to expand this program and further prepare

The Oberlin Review Fails to
Reflect Diverse Community
Continued from page 1
acknowledging the identity and perspective of the individual reporter.
“I think it’s especially important to have members of particular
sub-communities doing the reporting and bringing the special insight they have into those things and their special abilities to talk to
their peers, and to bring their own individual critical perspectives
to the ongoing events at Oberlin College,” Cooper said. “And that
means journalists of color. The issue lies in part with the paper’s hiring practices [and its failure to attract] journalists who come from
different economic backgrounds, journalists of various genders and
sexualities. It does make a difference what your life experience has
been.”
Although the Review attempts to cast a wide net — extending
open house invitations, offering office hours and encouraging submissions — editorial homogeneity remains far too consistent.
According to former Review editor, 2011 Editorial Fellow for the
Office of Communications and working journalist EJ Dickson, the
same issue persists outside of Oberlin.
“Like any other industry, hiring practices in mainstream journalism seem to be largely dictated by cronyism — although I can’t say
I’ve witnessed that [or] benefited from it directly, either at my Salon
internship or my current job [at the Daily Dot] — and I’m sure the
same still goes for the Review, to a certain extent,” Dickson said.
“When people are interested in hiring their friends, most other
concerns, including diversity, kinda fall by the wayside. So I think
that’s probably a large part of why this is an issue for some publications, student and otherwise.”
The staff ’s relative homogeneity is also perpetuated by its existing lack of diversity, mainstream journalistic tone, inaccessibility
and reputation as non-inclusive.
Current Editor-in-Chief of In Solidarity and College junior Joelle
Lingat said that she decided to redirect her journalistic pursuits to
other publications after contributing regularly to the Review during
her first year on campus.
“For me, there’s this quote that I really like: ‘You find your friends
where you find yourself,’ ” she said. “And so I found my voice where
I found people who appreciated my voice, so for me that’s kind of
what pushed me to move towards other publications.”
Cooper said that in her experience advising student publications,
the issue is not a lack of student interest in journalism.
“There are people interested in journalism from all across the
spectrum at Oberlin, from every group of people,” she said. “So,
they’re there. And the staff seems to know how to reach people, at
least initially, and I think [the students] are there waiting to hear.
Maybe they get distracted often to other activities, but I think just
going to Afrikan Heritage House and saying, ‘We need some AfricanAmerican reporters,’ isn’t gonna cut it.”
The problems, according to Cooper, aren’t new.
“To say the Review has never covered these things would be really wrong and a disservice to the memory of many students who
have been dedicated to these issues over the years,” she said. “But,
I am sorry that it seems to be a perennially occurring problem that
the Review staff is primarily white, primarily middle- to upper-class,
and each generation of students seems to have to find that out for
themselves and address it.”
Lingat said that although the conversation is a long time coming,
solutions will not be simple or easily executed.
“It’s really great and refreshing to see people trying to do this,
but this is going to be a struggle that stagnates unless it becomes a
wider conversation — not only on publications but on this campus
and in society in general,” she said.

students for elementary school, the reform
will add two preschool units for four-year-olds.
Boyd said she believes that the school’s 21st
century upgrades and new tech coach will take
the school in a new direction.
“Technology is being more incorporated
into the classroom and a lot of students that
we work with don’t have an opportunity to use
it outside of school. These kids will be able to
learn in different ways and hopefully for the better,” said Boyd.
Franklin will implement these reforms
through a grant it received from the Stocker
Foundation, an organization that, according
to its website, “aims to lessen the achievementgap for under-resourced prekindergarten
through third grade public school students by
investing in programs that strengthen reading
literacy.” Based in Elyria, the program provides
grants to schools in select counties across the

nation, including Pima County in Arizona, King
County in Washington and Connecticut’s Hartford County.
Stocker Foundation Executive Director Patricia O’Brien said that she hopes this five-year
reform program at Franklin will serve as a model for future projects.
“We’ll be tracking this to see what happens
over the five years and based on the results …
determine whether or not we will move forward in terms of replicating in Elyria or Lorain
County schools or in other communities,” said
O’Brien.
The reforms require the involvement of not
only school faculty but also parents, community partners and volunteers.
“It’s going to take the entire community to
make this reform work, and so we are going to
be asking for a lot from our community in every
aspect,” said Licht.

Accessibility of Affordable Health
Care Increases in Lorain County
Continued from page 2

the expansion is managed at the state level, which issues
monthly reports to counties. The program itself is administered through the Department of Child and Family Services.
“I think it will take us three to five years to see the overall
impact of what those changes might be. Health care [costs]
always go up, it seems; we’ve been able to hold ours at about
12 percent or 13 percent from last year,” said Kalo. “Actually
it was a little bit higher than that, about 18 percent, but
because of our cash reserves we’ve had, we’re able to only
implement about a 12 percent increase,” he added.
Lorain County Commissioner Lori Kokoski did not
mention rising costs. She highlighted the increased coverage for residents under the expansion implemented by
Governor Kasich.
“I think [there are] a lot of people who have fallen be-

tween the cracks [who] will now be covered,” said Kokoski.
Rule changes under the ACA have begun to take place
in Lorain County, including the requirement that insurance
plans must now cover children.
The county spends $26 million a year on its health plan.
According to Kalo, the new rules will cost the county an additional $260,000.
The county itself is self-insured: The government accepts a percentage of the risk associated with insuring its
residents, instead of simply leaving insurance to the marketplaces. Because of this system, most of the changes
mandated under the ACA have not affected the county as
dramatically as the rest of the country.
Many of the costs and changes from the ACA in Lorain
County remain unclear. As the final date for enrollment
nears, residents will either enroll or face the fines imposed
by the law.

February 28, 2014

Opinions
The Oberlin Review

Letters to the Editors
A Monumental
Oberlin Meeting
To the Editor:
It is important for us to
recall that Martin Luther
King Jr. made several visits
to Oberlin, but his first, in
February 1957, proved momentous for the future of the
civil rights movement. The
381-day Montgomery bus
boycott, during which King
began to make a name for
himself in the movement,
had just ended. King spoke
at First Church on “Justice
Without Violence” and “The
New Negro in the South” and
at a Finney Chapel assembly
on “The Montgomery Story.”
After one of these lectures, theologian Harvey
Cox, then the YMCA-YWCA
secretary at Oberlin College,
arranged for King to meet
an African-American firstyear at the Oberlin Graduate
School of Theology, James
M. Lawson Jr.
Lawson, the son of a militantly anti-racist Methodist minister and his pacifist
wife, had declared himself
a conscientious objector at
the age of 19 and was sentenced to federal prison.
After his release in 1951,
Lawson returned to his BA
studies at Baldwin-Wallace
College, but also spent time
meeting with Methodist student groups at Oberlin and
elsewhere to talk about pacifism and nonviolence.
Following
graduation,
Lawson traveled as a shortterm Methodist missionary
to India, where he continued
his study of Gandhian nonviolence. Upon his return
in 1956, Lawson enrolled at
the Oberlin Graduate School
of Theology, which, at the
time, probably enrolled
more black students than all
other seminaries combined.
Among the courses Lawson took was The Pacifism
of the Early Church: Jesus
through Constantine. When
Lawson and King met at the
beginning of Lawson’s sec-

ond semester, King was so
impressed by the student’s
knowledge of the theory and
practice of nonviolence that
he insisted Lawson must
immediately come south to
help the movement.
Lawson transferred to
Vanderbilt Divinity School
in Nashville, TN. The Fellowship of Reconciliation
employed him as field secretary to teach local groups
about Christian peacemaking and reconciliation in
race relations. Soon, Lawson was building the base
for the Nashville lunchcounter sit-ins of 1960. Central to this process were the
workshops in nonviolence
Lawson offered at local
churches and attended by
students from the several
historically black academic
institutions in the area, as
well as by Vanderbilt ministerial students.
In Lawson’s workshops,
the participants explored
the roots of segregation and
how to apply the Gandhian theory of nonviolence,
blended
together
with
Christian principles, in actions toward what Lawson
called “constructive social
change.”
During the sit-ins, Lawson was arrested along with
many others who became
leaders in the civil rights
movement, including current Georgia Congressman John Lewis. The lunch
counters were successfully
desegregated, but because
arrest violated Vanderbilt’s
code of conduct, the racially
conservative Board of Trust
and the chancellor (ironically, also a scholar of the
New Testament) had an excuse for expelling Lawson.
Many Vanderbilt faculty tendered their resignations in support of Lawson,
and he was readmitted but
decided instead to complete his studies at Boston
University.
Julian Bond, then active
in student protests, said,
“Lawson was like a bad

younger brother, pushing
King to do more, to be more
militant, to extend nonviolence — just to do more
… He envisioned a militant
nonviolence … You didn’t
have to wait for the evil to
come to you, you could go
to the evil.” King himself
called Lawson “the greatest
teacher of nonviolence in
America” and “the mind of
the movement.”
In 1962, Lawson became
pastor of Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis,
where he continued his activism, most notably in the
1968 strike by black sanitation workers. Union leader
Jerry Wurf recalled that
the Memphis city leaders
“feared Lawson for the most
interesting of all reasons
— he was a totally moral
man, and totally moral men
you can’t manipulate and
you can’t buy and you can’t
hustle.”
Lawson persuaded King
to come to Memphis to
support the strikers, and
it was there that King was
assassinated. In 1974, Lawson accepted the position
of senior pastor at Holman
United Methodist Church
in Los Angeles. Although retired from that ministry, he
continues to be active as a
teacher and in movements
for labor rights, immigrant
rights, civil rights and international peace.
In 2010, Oberlin College
awarded James M. Lawson
Jr. an honorary doctorate.
Dr. Lawson returns to Oberlin today for a week’s residence as a distinguished visiting lecturer. At an Oberlin
College convocation at 7:30
p.m. on Monday, March 3, at
First Church, where James
Lawson and Martin Luther
King had their initial meeting in 1957, he will speak on
“The Influence of Plantation
Capitalism on Today’s Human Rights.”
–John D. Elder, OC ’53

SUBMISSIONS POLICY
The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are
printed at the discretion of the editorial board.
All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for
inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words,
except with the consent of the editorial board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names,
for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm
authorship.
The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for content, space, spelling, grammar and libel. Editors will
work with columnists and contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication.
Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar.
In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission.
The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate
within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist
and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response.
The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to the author of a letter to the editors.
Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those
of the staff of the Review.

Page 5

The Oberlin Review
Publication of Record for Oberlin College
— Established 1874 —

Discussion of Post-Graduate Plans
Tainted by Privilege, Classism
While it’s still too early to glimpse the sweet relief of spring and its
coveted sunshine, telltale signs of senioritis are cropping up everywhere. Both North and South Campus are lousy with second-semester
seniors confronting a strange lethargy, characterized by a newfound
inability to complete even the lightest of readings, a passion for sweatpants and loungewear of all kinds, and a compulsion to ruminate over
a weeknight bottle of wine while bemoaning the possibilities of living
at home again after four short years of freedom.
For those fourth-years among you who have kept post-collegiate
stress at bay, now is the time to start worrying. In his weekly Source
column last week, President Krislov offered to meet with any seniors
concerned about their post-Oberlin plans. His offer is generous; his
advice is on point. Now is the time to start thinking about your future,
even if it terrifies you.
While it’s tempting to eschew cover letters for cover-less Senior
Nights at the ’Sco, there are numerous resources at your disposal right
now. But this is a limited time offer. It may be tempting to think that
services like the Career Center and the alumni network will be equally
available to after you walk across the stage on May 26, but the reality
is that they will never be as proximate or helpful to you as they are
right now. This also extends to the professor whom you keep forgetting to ask for that letter of recommendation, or the faculty member
whose contact book you’re itching to hack.
Fortunately, these resources are available to all students equally.
But this is not the case for many of the factors that ultimately play a
significant role in the desperate post-college job scramble, including
the feasibility of unpaid internships, the ability to move back home
and access to professional networks.
We too often assume the financial situation of others is similar to
our own, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Last year, approximately 80 percent of Oberlin students received need-based
financial aid of some kind and 16 percent of the student body hail
from families that earn below $60,000 per year. The misconception
that other student’s financial situations mirror your own betrays class
privilege and can inadvertently marginalize peers.
These discussions are born out of a desire to find commonality and
support in preparation for entry into the scary “real world,” but ironically manifest themselves in marginalizing and uncomfortable ways
far too often.
Although many of the resources in the post-grad job hunt are outside of our control, such as our hometown and socioeconomic class,
we can control how we discuss these sensitive topics with our peers.
On a campus often perceived as attentive to bias and prejudice, class
differences are too rarely discussed. We shouldn’t be aware of issues
like race and gender inequality while simultaneously ignoring the effects of socioeconomic stratification. Perhaps this emanates from the
less visible identifiers of class, but the insidious nature of financial
discrepancies is all the more reason to be cognizant of one’s own class
privilege when discussing the imminent future.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review editorial board — the
Editors-in-Chief, managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Page 6

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Issues of Social Justice Come to
the Fore in Tobacco Ban Issue
Allison O’Donnell
Contributing Writer
Oberlin College has a long history of
commitment to social justice and standing
up for vulnerable populations. The College
currently has the opportunity to stand up
for what is right and send a message to one
of the most destructive industries in the
world. A tobacco-free college campus policy is an opportunity for Oberlin students,
faculty and staff to send the message that
making billions of dollars from a deadly
and addictive product is not acceptable.
Tobacco control is a social justice issue. Strong tobacco control policies, including a tobacco-free campus, are in line
with Oberlin’s long-held commitment to
social justice, activism and standing up for
what is right even when it is difficult. The
tobacco industry manufactures a product
that kills half of the people who use it as
intended. The tobacco industry has known
that its products kill people for the past
50 years and continues to produce them.
In fact, the most recent Surgeon General’s
report finds that cigarettes today are more
deadly than they were 50 years ago because
of manipulation by the tobacco industry to
make them as addictive, appealing and easy
to consume as possible.
The tobacco industry spends $1 million
an hour marketing its products, particularly targeting youth, minorities and other
vulnerable populations, including people of

color and the LGBT community. They do it
in the U.S. and all around the world, especially in low- and middle-income countries,
where governments have the least amount
of power to fight back and people can least
afford the cost of buying tobacco products
and paying for the expensive treatments
of the various health consequences they
bring.
The tobacco industry has done a great
job of arguing that smoking is an individual choice that all adults have the right to
make. Unfortunately, this idea is a fallacy.
Almost all smokers have their first cigarette
and start smoking before they turn 18 and
are particularly vulnerable to tobacco industry marketing and nicotine, which happens to be one of the most addictive drugs
available, making it very, very difficult to
quit once you have started.
Tobacco use remains the leading cause
of preventable death in the U.S. and across
the globe, killing almost 500,000 people
every year in the U.S. — more than AIDS,
alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. It killed two of
my uncles who started smoking in middle
school, could never quit and died decades
later, leaving their friends and families to
mourn their loss. People die and the tobacco industry makes billions of dollars every
year. This is not acceptable. A tobacco-free
campus policy sends the message that none
of this is allowed and that Oberlin students
don’t support the tobacco industry.

Ukrainian Crisis Presents Example
of Global Political Unrest
Sean Para
Columnist
The recent political developments
in Ukraine highlight the extreme political fragility of many regimes around the
world. In the space of a few weeks, a protest movement turned increasingly radical
until President Viktor Yanukovych was run
out of government. A true political revolution has occurred, with great changes in
government certain to follow. The political crisis is far from resolved. Tensions still
flare all over Ukraine about the president’s
deposition, while Russia makes military
demonstrations in Crimea. While I cannot predict the outcome of this turbulent
moment, the current conflict is strongly
rooted in historical tensions that have
plagued the region since the beginning of
World War I.
Ukrainian nationalism is largely a construction of the 20th century. This is not to
deny that the Ukrainian people have historical antecedents. Ukraine was created
as a Soviet socialist republic in 1922 and
incorporated into the USSR This was the
first territorial demarcation of Ukraine.
Before then, the region had been split between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian
empires. The nationalist uprisings that occurred following World War I allowed the
Ukrainian state to come into being, but the
divide between “Ukraine” and “Russia” has
only existed since the breakup of the USSR
in 1991.
Much of eastern and southern Ukraine
speaks Russian and its inhabitants consider themselves to have strong historical
and national links to Russia. In the west
of the country, on the other hand, Ukrainian nationalism is far stronger, and nearly
everyone speaks Ukrainian. President Ya-

nukovych was from the eastern region and
maintained strong links to Russia, refusing
economic aid from the European Union
and instead looking east for economic and
political support. Russia’s desire to keep
Ukraine in its sphere of influence is thus
a primary geopolitical cause for the crisis.
Inside Ukraine, many felt wronged by
the increasingly corrupt and autocratic
Ukrainian government, and launched
large protests decrying current government policy. These demonstrations spiraled out of control, leading to huge riots
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

A true political revolution
has occurred, with great
changes in government certain to follow.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
and mass killings last week. Yanukovych’s
political support melted away; he had gone
too far. Opposition members of Parliament
moved against him, and he was effectively
deposed.
This striking turn of events displays
strong continuities between our world and
that of previous generations. The Cold War
is over, but American-Russian competition
remains a major element in current international relations. The End of History —
an utterly absurd concept if there ever was
one — has certainly not yet arrived. The
lives we lead are the direct result of macro-historic trends that we have no control
over. So, let us all take inspiration from the
people of Ukraine, who boldly stood up to
their oppressive and unjust government.
We as Americans have much to learn from
their actions of resistance.

Jesse Kohler
Student Senate Liaison
This week’s Senate meeting was
attended by the Responsible Investment Organization — a committee which hopes to make the
investments of the school more
transparent, as well as have a say
in what investments are made. If
you are interested in being a part
of this organization, please email
Lila Bhide (lbhide@oberlin.edu).
All senators’ office hours are
also up on the website, and we
encourage you to come to us during these times to discuss any and
all questions or concerns that
you have related to responsible
investment.
College sophomore Ziya Smallens, the Student Health Working
Group chair, had a meeting with
Dean of Students Eric Estes last
week, in which they discussed expanding mental health resources

on campus. Topics discussed included moving the walk-in hours
of the Student Health Center to
more convienent times, making
Mercy Allen Hospital more accessible for all students in case of
emergencies or times that Student
Health is not open as well as providing transportation for students
who see outside therapists.
On a similar topic, the Public
Transit Working Group will meet
at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays ( first meeting this Friday, Feb. 28) and student attendance and participation
are encouraged and appreciated.
Finally, senators were appointed to committees this week. All
appointments are available on the
Senate website.
Many committees have open
positions that all students can
apply for, so please pay attention
for several upcoming announcements that will provide further
information!

Misguided Sex-Robot Opera
Hits All the Wrong Notes
Jennifer Bower
Contributing Writer
Two weeks ago, I saw the opera Nova,
an original collaboration between Paul
Schick, professor of German, Lewis
Nielson, professor of Composition and
Jonathon Field, associate professor of
Opera Theater. I first learned about
Nova through some friends who were
participating in the musical side of the
project. The fragments of description
that I received intrigued me, so I gathered as much information as I could before attending the performance on Friday. The promotional material for Nova,
an opera about the sale of a sex robot,
started to set off some alarms. The “O”
in Nova was a suggestively wide mouth,
ringed by lipstick, and the “V” was a
pair of robot legs spread wide open. I
did more homework and learned that
Paul Schick, the librettist, had stated
that the work was “highly feminist but
could be misunderstood.” I cracked my
knuckles and prepared to tackle Nova
with all the fervor of a Misunderstanding Feminist.
Two hours after Nova began, I was a
mess: my legs were shaking, I felt nauseated and it was hard to look anyone
in the eyes. I went into the opera expecting to start with a Bechdel-level
critique and go from there, but I was
hit with such a tangled mass of failed
satire, objectification and horrifying,
near-constant simulated sex that it was
hard to think, much less articulate the
ways in which Nova was screwed up.
A little time has passed, and I am
ready to talk about Nova. Although its
authors intended to satirize the commodification of sex, the opera failed to
achieve a necessary level of satire in its
execution, and it wound up a violently
offensive work. Over 14 simulated sex
acts occurred on stage, many of which
were nonconsensual and objectifying,
all of which were accompanied by a
stream of dialogue between the salesman and the main character, Al, that

consisted mainly of crude and misogynistic jokes. This excess, presented
without any trigger warnings, intended
to make the viewer feel revulsion for the
sex-hungry, misogynistic main characters. But instead, people laughed.
When the salesman said to Al, “You like
that blowjob, eh?” the man next to me
laughed. When the salesman boasted
that the robot Nova “combines the
whore and the wife into one,” the man
laughed again. He laughed at every awful joke, and I’m pretty sure he left Nova
feeling great. The opera allowed him
and others to view the work as voyeurs
and thus laugh without remorse and
sidestep the “satire” entirely. I shrunk
down in my seat and tried to keep my
rage from escaping. The two women on
stage weren’t allowed a single line.
Besides being functionally objectifying and misogynistic, Nova flirts with
classism (the main character works in
a factory and presumably is much less
“educated” than Nova’s authors and
audience) and is riddled with anti-sex
worker dialogue. Unfortunately, the
problems in Nova are symptomatic of a
general crisis in the arts. It’s common
for composers and writers to tackle
controversial subjects in order to provoke audiences and challenge the status quo. However, given that the majority of mainstream artists are white men
working alone, when they engage with
social issues in a way that upsets marginalized groups it is not avant-garde.
It’s alienating.
I will admit there were some important things to come out of my Nova
experience: 1. Free beer. 2. The musicians performed really well. 3. A friend
and I cut up stolen Nova promotional
cards and made twee valentines out of
them. 4. The show served as a reminder
that even supposedly “progressive” art
(by Oberlin professors, no less) can
reinforce misogynistic and violent attitudes toward women. I’m keeping my
distance in the future.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Page 7

Collegiate Alcohol Consumption Yields Surprising Effects
Josh Kogan
Contributing Writer
In my attempt to write scientific articles relevant to college students, the first thing that
came to mind was to write about
how alcohol and other drugs affect our minds and bodies. However, when I actually sat down
to write, I realized it was very
hard to write an article without
sounding preachy. I kept writing
things about all of the research
showing negative effects of alcohol on memory, learning, etc. Essentially, I sounded like parents
telling their kids that alcohol
will kill them if they drink it, or
all of those “Above the Influence”
commercials saying that doing
drugs will rot your brain.
I don’t really believe any of
that propaganda, and as a (relatively) normal Oberlin student, I
enjoy a well-shaken martini or
even a nice can of PBR, the staple of our fantastic party scene.
Despite all attempts to avoid it,
this article may seem like a PSA
warning against the dangers of
underage drinking, and I want to
assure you that this is not at all

my intention. I would just like
to convey some interesting scientific information about how
we as an age group respond to
alcohol.
This semester, we are very fortunate to have Dr. Scott Swartzwelder visiting us and teaching
a class on alcohol and the brain
through the Neuroscience department. Dr. Swartzwelder is
a researcher at Duke University,
where he runs a lab researching the effects of alcohol on
the developing brain. So when
I had the idea for this article, I
thought it would be great to get
his perspective on these topics.
“The most important thing for
people to know about alcohol
is that it affects the young brain
very differently from the adult
brain,” he said.
Now, let me explain that
statement a little bit. Alcohol is
a small molecule that has numerous, dose-dependent effects
on the brain. At low doses, it decreases inhibition, reduces anxiety and makes people generally
more social. At higher doses, it
can impair memory and cognitive functions and also activate

inhibitory signals in the brain
that make you sleepy, want to
stop drinking and go to bed. In
younger people, the threshold
for getting sleepy is much higher
than in older people, while sensitivity to memory and cognitive
impairment is much lower.
So if I have five drinks, I’ll
be much more likely to want to
drink more, act like more of an
idiot and not get tired and stop
drinking, whereas the opposite
would be true for my dad. I don’t
necessarily think this means you
should change your drinking
habits, but it could account for
why young people like to drink a
lot more than older people.
Dr. Swartzwelder also said
that, “one of the great things
about alcohol for college students, especially in very low
doses, is its ability to facilitate
social interactions that are so
important for people in that age
group.” If you have one or two
drinks, this can inhibit the socalled “executive functions” of
the prefrontal cortex, a large region of the brain located roughly
behind the eyes. These executive
functions are analogous to the

CEO of a company — integrating
and controlling input from various processes involving many
things, including how we interact with other people.
When the prefrontal cortex is
inhibited, this leads to a disinhibition of the brain areas involved
in social restraint and anxiety,
and makes it much easier for
people to talk and communicate
freely. It’s only when you exceed
the one- or two-drink threshold
that decision-making, coordination and all the other things
that go along with alcohol use
become impaired.
Also related to social disinhibition is the so called “expectancy effect,” which is analogous to
the placebo effect. Expectancy
means that you will experience
certain effects from alcohol simply because you think you are
drinking it. It doesn’t matter if
you are actually drinking or not.
This is especially true of the subjective effects that come with
small alcohol doses, like feeling
happier or being more outgoing.
According to Dr. Swartzwelder,
“There is very little research
examining the expectancy ef-

fect and differences between age
groups, but it seems likely that
younger people who are more
susceptible to social pressure
and less experienced with alcohol would be more susceptible
to this effect.”
It seems to make sense that
someone without very much experience with alcohol will have
all sorts of expectations based
on what friends and family have
told them, but I think it also follows that as you gain more experience with alcohol, you will develop certain perceptions of how
small amounts of alcohol affect
you that become reinforced with
more drinking.
That said, expectancy pretty
much only occurs at low doses.
If you have 10 drinks, the alcohol will severely inhibit certain
brain functions whether or not
you expect it to.
These are just a few interesting ideas to think about next
time you’re at Splitchers or happy hour at the Feve. Next time
you’re curious about what a drug
does to your body, don’t rely on
your friends or parents. Just ask
a scientist.

Foul-Mouthed Celebrities
Must Stop Being Themselves

Impact Investment Platform Aids
Student-Trustee Relations

Ruby Saha
Columnist

Machmud Makhmudov
Contributing Writer

There’s something strangely satisfying
about watching someone let a stream of
four-letter words fly. I’m as prone to quotidian profanity as anyone else, and watching
someone like John McEnroe flay an umpire
alive is one of my terrible guilty pleasures.
There’s an incredible energy that comes
out of a Mel Gibson or Christian Bale-level
explosion, that elusive frisson of expletiveladen evisceration that the everyday Fbomb just doesn’t quite cover.
That said, I’m a lot less enthusiastic
about foul-mouthed personalities like Gordon Ramsay or Anthony Bourdain. I think
my dislike of them comes down to the fact
that they’ve built careers around being
assholes.
It doesn’t matter which episode I land
on among Gordon Ramsay’s cornucopia of
television shows; at any given moment, I’ll
be faced with his craggy, Marianas Trenchlined face drawn into a deep, wave-shaped
grimace, the beginnings of an “f ” frothing
from his lips before the 1000-hertz “bleep”
sound shields my sensitive, young ears.
Gordon Ramsay is easily the most censored person on television, and frankly, it’s
boring. I get the “realism” argument, which
is that every restaurant kitchen is a boot
camp of verbal carnage, and Ramsay’s only
putting a spotlight on the characteristic
cruelty that occurs behind the Michelin
stars.
But there’s nothing exciting about
watching him make mincemeat out of his
contestants. His bleep-laden tirades are as
predictable as they are nasty: You look like a
bleeping [insert animal of the day]. I’ll ram
that pumpkin right up your bleeping arse.
You disgusting pigs. You fat-arse. You bleeping bleep!
It’s crude, cruel and lazy, and I’m bitter
because he’s managed to build a multi-million dollar empire around it.
Anthony Bourdain is another one of
those “asshole chefs” (without the excuse of
being British) that sets my teeth on edge. It’s

not so much that I mind his bad boy, “gourmet anti-hero” shtick; it’s certainly more
enjoyable than watching Ramsay scream at
people, and it helps that Bourdain’s easier
on the eye. But, as Tamar E. Adler pointed
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

I think my dislike of them
comes down to the fact that
they’ve built careers around being assholes.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
out in a New Yorker article, Bourdain turns
food into a sport: “In the land of Bourdain,
no dinner is complete without stentorian
grunting, cursing, and beating one’s chest.”
Like Adler, I miss the Kitchen Confidential-era Bourdain, who painted a frank and
vulgar portrait of the restaurant industry’s
dirty underbelly.
His tell-all was as funny as it was useful — never order fish on Mondays; mussels generally “wallow in their own foulsmelling piss in the bottom of a reach-in”;
specials are restaurant-speak for near-expiration — and briefly put me off seafood,
which, if you know anything about my love
for fish, is saying something.
Sadly, Bourdain’s self-consciousness
over his post-Kitchen Confidential fame
leads him to lash out at other “celebrity
chefs” like Paula Deen — “she revels in unholy connections with evil corporations,
and she’s proud of the fact that her food is
fucking bad for you” — and Alice Waters —
“[She] annoys the living shit out of me …
There’s something very Khmer Rouge about
[her].”
It doesn’t really matter if he’s right; it
matters that he chooses to do it as crassly
as possible. Both he and Gordon Ramsay
resort to ad hominem attacks that are lazy
and unimaginative. I love food and I love
profanity, but I have no interest in perpetuating or supporting this asshole culture.

On Oct. 17, Clyde McGregor, OC ’74,
chair of the Oberlin Board of Trustees,
announced via an article in Oberlin OnCampus that the Board had approved
a resolution for an impact investment
platform.
The platform will promote responsible investment of the College’s endowment through a sub-committee
comprising students, alumni, faculty
and trustees. Coming off of the Oberlin
Symposium on Divestment held nearly
three weeks ago, I’m personally excited
about the potential that this platform
has to promote Oberlin’s social justice
agenda and generate a positive relationship between the board and the
student body.
While maintaining financial solvency for the College in both the immediate
and long-term is imperative if Oberlin
is going to continue to make a worldclass education accessible to thousands
of students, that doesn’t mean that a
return on investment has to come at
the expense of environmental or social
justice concerns.
While Oberlin’s endowment of nearly $700 million is a small fraction of the
$400 billion held by all colleges and
universities in the United States, the investment choices that we make reflect
our most deeply held values.

When it comes to taking principled
stances, what we do speaks so loudly
that nobody can even hear what we
say. Making strategic investments provides us with an opportunity to put our
money where our mouth is and support
socially conscious causes.
As a student senator, I encourage
students to work with Senate’s Transparency Working Group (chaired by
Senator Hope Kassen) to help develop
a unifying vision for what impact investment looks like for Oberlin. Kassen
is excited about expanding the group’s
reach and impact and has gotten it off
to a great start.
The Responsible Investment Organization has also done tremendous work
creating tangible options for the College to help improve the economic and
ecological resilience of the local region.
The Impact Investment Platform
also has the potential to be a space
where a productive working relationship between the student body and the
Board of Trustees can be forged.
By accepting students onto the Impact Investment Sub-Committee, the
Board is clearly communicating that
it is eager to listen to and hear from
students.
I hope that the creation of this platform is a strong first step toward helping the entire Oberlin community craft
a unified vision of the values that we are
committed to upholding.

Today is the day.
Have your voice heard.
Write a column or letter.
opinions@oberlinreview.org

Last spring, repeated instances of bigoted, hateful graffiti and the harassment
of campus activists, queer students and
people of color rattled the Oberlin community. The resulting series of workshops
and events aimed to educate on oppression and allyship. One year later, Oberlin
commemorates the work of those organizers with a series of events to remember last year’s community building and
discuss ways to move forward with institutional critiques and proposed changes.

Activist, contemporary of Martin
Luther King, Jr. and retired pastor
Rev. Dr. James M. Lawson Jr., OC ’57,
was a leading voice in the civil rights
movement on the topic of nonviolence. He will be giving a class
session titled “The Transformative
Power of Nonviolence” in the Lord
Lounge of Afrikan Heritage House.

Rev. Dr. James M.
Lawson, Jr., OC ’57, will
be speaking on “The
Impact of Plantation
Capitalism on Today’s
Human Rights” at First
Church, Oberlin. Free,
no tickets required.

Posters of Love: the Multicultural Resource
Center is sponsoring a session of positive
poster making in the Wilder Alcove. After
making posters, students are encouraged to
post them around campus to remind the student body to stand by love, not hate.

Writer and musician James Mc
will give a special convocati
Chapel. Award-winning aut
penned The Color of Water, whi
New York Times Best Sellers lis
and has collaborated with Spik
tiple films. Tickets are required

Students
students
in King 1
reflect o
changes
ward and

nstances of big-

the harassment
eer students and
he Oberlin comies of workshops
ucate on oppresear later, Oberlin
k of those orgavents to rememity building and
rward with instioposed changes.

Author Natasha Trethewey, current Poet Laureate Consultant of
the United States, will be speaking
at Finney Chapel. Currently a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University, she has
already published four poetry collections, one of which won the Pulitzer
Prize, and a work of non-fiction
titled Beyond Katrina: A Meditation
on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She
has also received fellowships from
prestigious institutions such as the
National Endowment for the Arts
and Harvard University. Free, no
tickets required.

Writer and musician James McBride, OC ’79,
will give a special convocation in Finney
Chapel. Award-winning author, McBride
penned The Color of Water, which was on the
New York Times Best Sellers list for two years,
and has collaborated with Spike Lee on multiple films. Tickets are required and free.

Students will have the opportunity to gather with other
students, as well as working groups and student leaders,
in King 106 to discuss the future of solidarity at Oberlin,
reflect on the past events of March 4, 2013, and tackle
changes that still need to be made in order to move forward and continue combating oppression.

Look out for the Oberlin
History Lesson installation in
Finney Chapel accompanied by
Natasha Trethewey’s convocation on March 4, which will
include statements by students
in a wide variety of styles that
focus on each individual’s experiences and developments from
the past year in reaction to the
events that occurred exactly
one year ago. After the convocation, the installation will be
moved from Finney Chapel to
the Science Center.

Professors
Meredith
M. Gadsby, Meredith
Raimondo, Renée Romano
and Justin Emeka will be
participating in a discussion in King 106 on the
events surrounding March
4, 2013. The discussion will
focus on community voice,
organization and empowerment, as well as how to
move forward without forgetting the past.

Page 10

Arts
The Oberlin Review

February 28, 2014

Brooks Imparts Artistic Philosophy in Gripping Convocation
Nora Kipnis
Arts Editor
Actor Avery Brooks, OC ’70, walks onstage at Finney Chapel in an all-white
suit, took a seat at the piano and treated
the audience to a dramatic performance
of “Throw it Away” by jazz singer and
songwriter Abbey Lincoln — an unorthodox beginning to an unorthodox
convocation. However, the event was
thoroughly consistent with the interpretation of the word “convocation” as
“a celebration”; Brooks’s convocation,
though unusual, was foremost a celebration of art and community.
Currently, Brooks is a professor of
Theater Arts at Rutgers University, but,
more famously, he is an actor, musician
and director best known for his roles as
Captain Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine and Detective Hawk on Spenser:
For Hire. Brooks has also acted in American History X and 20 years ago played
Solomon Northup in the PBS movie Half
Slave Half Free, based on the memoir
Twelve Years a Slave. In his introduction to Brooks’s convocation, President
Krislov quoted Brooks as saying, “Brown
children must be able to participate in
traditional mythology.” In his convocation, Brooks followed the theme of mythology, calling it “one of the most important tools man has been given.” His
interest in integrating the perspectives
and aesthetics of people of all races into
typically Western mythology and culture
was evident; one of the first things he
said was, “Every single moment depends
on us coming together.”
During the convocation, Brooks
talked to Assistant Professor of Theater
Justin Emeka, OC ’95, whose friendship
with Brooks began when they met 20
years ago. When Emeka asked Brooks
about his experience at Oberlin, Brooks
spoke eloquently of coming to the haven

of liberalism during the turbulent 1960s.
His grandmother had tried to come to
Oberlin but couldn’t afford it, so Brooks
was determined to attend with a scholarship. When he finally matriculated,
he was part of the largest class of people
of color in the school’s history. Brooks
then went on to discuss his experience
with an art and performance collective
that performed to audiences outside
the Oberlin College bubble. His desire
to bridge the town-gown divide, Brooks
said, was due to his experience growing up in a community where everyone
knew each other.
Transcending the “proverbial walls”
between communities was a recurring
theme of the convocation and apparently one of Brooks’s major artistic goals.
For example, when asked about how he
identifies a piece of art as “classical,”
Brooks said that the most important
consideration is that the work must
be universally appealing, transcending
time and location. He disputed the notion that a “classic” has to be inaccessible. He referenced Shakespeare, who was
so dedicated to capturing the vernacular
of the people in his plays that he didn’t
even use punctuation in the original
editions, as an example of an accessible
classical artist.
Remarkably, Brooks answered many of
Emeka’s questions using art — he often
walked over to the piano for another impassioned rendition of “Throw it Away,”
his music serving as his only answer to
the question. His voice was gripping and
emotionally evocative, and his theater
training showed in his ability to speak
with his hands and modulate his tone of
voice to keep the audience enthralled.
Brooks emphasized the interconnectedness of time and space at Oberlin today. However, he said that Oberlin
should work harder to help students feel
hopeful about what they will do after

Brooklyn’s Archie Pelago Creates
Rhythmic, Repetitive Sound
Rosie Black
Production Manager
Archie Pelago recording and mixing tracks in the studio is one thing, but when
the eclectic trio played at the ’Sco on Friday night, it was an entirely different story.
The Brooklyn-based group’s recordings are predominantly instrumental, creating
an emotive and atmospheric texture, but their performance didn’t quite live up to
the promise of the recordings. As they took the stage, Hirshi, a DJ and trumpeter,
informed the audience, “We’re gonna take you on a little improvising journey.” And
so they did.
Preceding the trio, solo act Jacob 2-2 graced the stage, accompanied by two computers and a soundboard. A series of visuals flickered on the screen behind him in a
repeating sequence: little running cartoon men, stylized numbers, off-color pictures
of satellite dishes and a rainbow cave of wonders. True to his name — based on the
cult Canadian children’s film Jacob Two Two meets the Hooded Fang — Jacob 2-2 also
included movie clips of boys in the throes of childhood exploration, a theme that
runs throughout much of his music. He built the music onstage without interacting
with the audience, dropping the bass with a flourishing hand, mellowing out for a
measure, then bumping it up again for the audience’s pleasure.
After gesturing “rock on” to the crowd, Jacob 2-2 ceded the stage to Archie Pelago,
composed of saxophonist Kroba, cellist Cosmo D and DJ Hirshi. Each musician had his
instrument or a mixing board and computer in front of him. To kick off the improvisational journey, Hirshi laid a beat, and Kroba and Cosmo D proceeded to play a few bars
before looping and mixing what they had just played using Ableton music software.
The resulting highly rhythmic, smooth jazz-influenced electronic sound with thudding bass and synth-pop overtones got the crowd dancing, and the improvisation kept
the audience guessing.
Hirshi checked in with the crowd every now and then, as if wondering whether or
not to keep playing. The audience answered every inquiry with applause and cheers,
See Electronic, page 13

Assistant Professor of Theater Justin Emeka, OC ’95, interviews Avery Brooks, OC ’70, in Finney
Chapel Saturday night. Brooks treated the audience to soulful music on the piano and a monologue from Othello, and, at his request, the convocation concluded with two student performances.
Courtesy of Dale Preston

graduation, particularly those interested
in pursuing artistic fields. He emphasized that he couldn’t imagine that the
events leading up to March 4 last year
would have happened at the Oberlin of
1966. Though there was certainly political strife on campus then, Brooks said
that there was no question that students
shouldn’t blatantly disrespect each other’s identities. However, he stressed that
we have a responsibility to keep the story
of March 4 alive: “We can’t solve it, but
we sure can talk about it.”
At both the beginning and end of the
convocation, Brooks asked audience
members to name one person who had
helped them to get here — their parents, the people who had driven them
to Finney or any other person who had
helped them along in life. At the end of

the convocation, Brooks gave a stunning
rendition of Othello’s dying speech from
Shakespeare’s Othello, the way he said
Paul Robeson ended his public appearances. Then, in keeping with his perception of a convocation as a celebration
— of life, of art and of community — he
invited College sophomore Caylen Bryant to the stage. Bryant had played her
original cello song “To the Mountaintop”
at the tribute to Brooks the previous
night, which Brooks said truly touched
him, and Bryant performed it again at
Brooks’s request, followed by an energetic dance performance by Dance Diaspora. “It’s not a holiday,” he’d said earlier,
“but you can declare one whenever you
want.” And declare a holiday was exactly
what Brooks did.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Page 11

Soundfarm Show Encircles Listeners with Sound
Paris Gravley
In Conservatory Central 25, eight small speakers sat
in a circle, a modern Stonehenge setup, but with shorter,
more expensive stones. A few rows of chairs placed in the
middle faced the makeshift stage, which consisted of a
couple of tables, a few Macs, a soundboard and a tangled
mess of cords. It was Saturday at 8:30 p.m, and Soundfarm, a concert series for improvised music, was hosting
its fourth show, titled Circles.
Noise music is arguably one of the least accessible
genres out there. Because its creation is rooted in blurring the line between noise and music, an inexperienced
listener is at a disadvantage when it comes to the nuances of “good noise.” What differentiates blank static from
blank static as music? Add the complication of improvisation, and the listener is further distanced from some
sort of grounding measure. Was that change intentional?
Accidental? Or just, well, noise?
The flip side of ignorance is that experience overrides
all pre-existing measures of quality. Unlike more traditional genres, noise music isn’t backed up by its listeners’
familiarity with a lifetime of popular music. For people
those of us who know nothing about noise, it is a unique
experience of “was that in some weird way enjoyable? Or
was it not?”
College senior Sally Decker performed first. The
piece started off with a call-and-response of static; opposing speakers played similar sequences with varying
degrees of delay. The effect was an interweaving mix of
synchronization and competition. Because she used different speakers for different sounds, each chair offered
a unique listening experience. The relative proximity of
each speaker determined the sounds you heard loudest,
faintest, or even missed entirely.
Decker’s piece progressed away from the echo-like
pattern into more complex variations, adding a quality
of static, horizontal movement through the speakers,
and some vocals in the form of soft, guttural “awws.” Her
piece seemed controlled, gentler and less abrasive than
the two that followed. Though it wasn’t cacophonous, the
piece itself seemed a little self-conscious, the improvisa-

tions thoughtful but hesitant and less surprising than the
other two. Changes eased, rather than crashed, into the
mix. When the piece ended, it had reached a soothing
note, but perhaps a simple one.
Next up was College senior Jack Patterson, whose
piece in many ways contrasted with Decker’s. His mentality seemed to be “more is better,” especially when it came
to volume, which was flirting with unbearable. However
painful, the extreme dynamic created a deafening cylinder of noise, metaphorically trapping the audience.
The static in Patterson’s music, as opposed to Decker’s
old TV snow, was more along the lines of an Amber Alert
message. A harsher, higher-frequency texture was combined with dog-whistle tones and something that sounded like a missile dropping. The performance in general
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Unlike more traditional genres, noise music
isn’t backed up by its listeners’ familiarity
with a lifetime of popular music.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
felt like a full-blown siege, and when Patterson cut the
music off abruptly, there was a wave of silent relief with
some ear-ringing backlash. His performance, while exciting, was not as enjoyable as Decker’s. Though, to be
fair, enjoyable is not always the endgame; violent, messy,
abrasive and dense is as equally respectable an effect, but
not necessarily what appeals to all listeners.
Following Patterson’s work was the music of doubledegree sophomore Paulus Van Horne. Van Horne’s piece
began as a warm texture with a line that vibrated the
chairs. The new vibration’s insulating effect distinguished
itself from Patterson’s overpowering volume. Patterson’s
piece demanded attention simply because it forced itself
into the forefront of the brain, jackhammering in from
the outside. Van Horne’s piece occupied the same space,
but somehow emanated from the inside. The vibration he
created, as opposed to the sound Patterson created, was
a felt experience, rather than an observed one.

In addition to giving specific attention to the vibrational quality, the piece played with the circular setup of
the speakers more than the other two performers. The
piece moved systematically through the speakers, horizontally extending as two neighboring speakers played
the same tones, and then eventually fading as the previous speaker fell silent to its louder neighbor. As the
piece progressed, the playfulness with speaker choice remained constant, but the noticeable pattern diminished.
Running in parallel to the geographic movement was
volume. Rather than remaining constant, the piece fluctuated, at times to near silence, then back to Patterson’s
fortissimo dynamic. Between the changes in sound and
the tonal quality, Van Horne’s piece seemed more structured than the previous two and subsequently more musical. Decker’s piece, though consistent and fluid, lacked
the multi-layered complexity of Patterson’s and Van
Horne’s, while Patterson’s “give ’em everything we got”
approach seemed chaotic and less nuanced.
The show concluded with a collaboration between Van
Horne and College senior Adam Hirsch. Hirsch, who organizes the Soundfarm music series, played saxophone,
but not in the usual sense. Several microphones had
been hooked onto the sax in various locations, picking
up on the atypical sounds the instrument’s structure can
make. Hirsch utilized the saxophone’s physical qualities:
he drummed on the bell, pressed the keys, ran his hand
up and down the body. Paired with Van Horne’s noise elements, the piece sounded like a dystopian saxophone
solo played by someone unfamiliar with the instrument’s
classic use. The piece ran a little long, and Hirsch’s playing definitely overpowered Van Horne’s contribution; at
times, it seemed they weren’t working together.
SoundFarm no. 4: Circles introduced surround sound
in a novel and surprising way; the performers used the
placement of the speakers to their unique advantages.
The performance brought into question noise and its
purpose as a performed medium. As for the overall likeability, it’s harder to determine. But if the music was able
to develop an alternative understanding of a medium we
are unfamiliar with, is how much we like it as important?

Senior Dance Concert Showcases Diversity in Choreography

College senior Jessica Lam descends from above College sophomore Alana Reibstein, College
junior Lillian White, College senior Jesse Wiener, College first-year Natalia Shevin and College
senior Toby Irving during College senior Hayley Larson’s section of the Senior Dance Concert.
The concert comprised Larson’s and fellow College senior Juliana Garber’s final projects in the
Dance department.
Yvette Chen

Vida Weisblum

The Senior Dance Concert this past Friday and Saturday in Warner Main was an
absorbing representation of Oberlin’s Dance
department. Featuring choreography by two
senior Dance majors, the show was a creative production that combined elements
of partnering, aerial acrobatics and contact
improvisation techniques, demonstrating a
broad skill base. The Senior Dance Concert
was performed on a modified prosceniumstyle stage, and as with most Oberlin dance
shows, the performance was greatly enhanced by the open nature of the venue. The
diverse, artistic dances demonstrated the
capacity for experimentation in movement

and structure in Oberlin’s Dsance program
and thoroughly enthralled the audience.
The opener “dis/connect” was choreographed by veteran performer and choreographer Juliana Garber, College senior,
who most recently performed in the 2013
Fall Forward concert. Garber opened the
piece with a fluid solo that harnessed a
sense of suspension and contraction, a
theme that she continued throughout the
piece. Along with the other six dancers
in the piece, Garber generated harmonic
movement that was both inventive and
truly beautiful. Each of the dancers moved
with strong clarity — even their facial expressions evinced their engagement with
the choreography. College senior Elaine

Liu’s mid-dance entrance was particularly
striking, adding another level of dimension to the dance. College juniors Christopher McLauchlan and Madeline Klein’s
sheer strength as fully engaged dancers
was similarly beautiful. They effortlessly
connected with Garber’s choreography,
and both demonstrated an acute awareness of bodily suspense and release — in
other words, “dis/connecting.” Garber’s
utilization of the famed Oberlin contact
improvisation technique captured the
ephemeral nature of connection and disconnection through the imagery of weight
transfer and partnering. Additionally, her
costume and lighting choices demonstrated a particularly mellow elegance, though
the music was distracting at times.
In keeping with the name of her piece,
Garber seemed to have a personal connection with her dance. The dancers had their
own moments on stage to interpret Garber’s choreography, but Garber also had
solos that captured her personal intent as
a dancer. This interesting choreographic
choice evoked feelings of reflection and
separation, fitting for a final project performed not long before its creator will disconnect physically from Oberlin.
While Garber’s piece offered a more
traditional and streamlined reflection on
her Oberlin dance experience, College
senior Hayley Larson’s piece “Compress,
Release” was more experimental, filled
with quirky flair and presentational elements. The overall impression of Larson’s
performance was less of a pure dance performance and more an intense hybrid of
contemporary dance and Cirque du Soleil, a comparison aided by the use of extreme makeup and tight black costumes.
While the piece was slightly disjointed,
the disjointedness was generally entertaining and for the most part worked to

the dance’s advantage. At times, the title
seemed particularly appropriate. The
opening solo focused on contrasting the
elasticity of back-and-forth movement
with the tension of stillness. While the
dance began as a cohesive piece with a
relatively small group, the addition of several other dancers created a sense of chaos on stage. The choreography was crafted
with a clear sense of style and plenty of
innovation, but lost some of its elegance
due to the disorder caused by the amount
of dancers onstage.
Larson’s use of aerial work was also intriguing. The incorporation of another art
form was brave and exciting, especially
in the context of such a complex, multidimensional dance. While many exciting
aerialist performances take place at Oberlin, this particular experience was unique.
While the incorporation of aerialist work
was creatively choreographed and wellexecuted, at times the acrobatic silk routine struggled to mesh with the contemporary elements of the dance. Fortunately,
this slight disjunction was redeemed by
the originality and excitement otherwise
demonstrated in the aerial segments.
The Senior Dance Concert should serve
as an inspiration to all current and aspiring dancers. The innovation of movement,
commingling of art forms and choreography were exceptional, and the show was
elevated by the investment and engagement of the dancers. During one of the
most memorable moments of Larson’s
piece, College sophomore Sakina Lavingia
stood at the front of a large group of dancers, her eyes radiating a ferocity that was
indicative of the sheer joy that dance at
Oberlin brings to all involved — not only
in Garber’s and Larson’s pieces, but in the
program as a whole.

Arts

Page 12

Benefit Concert to
Fund Anti-Frackers
Erik Larson
Smelling like a sweaty stoner and
packed to the absolute limit, Harkness
lounge was a lively and appropriate venue
for last Friday’s Folk the Pipeline concert,
presented by Oberlin College Anti-Frack.
Both a benefit concert and a terrific showcase of student talent, the two-hour concert was a generally fantastic time, no
matter how you felt about fracking.
The issues at hand were twofold: raising money to cover the cost of fines for
those attending a protest in D.C. this weekend against the proposed Keystone pipeline, and providing relief to the Charleston area of West Virginia, which recently
suffered a chemical spill. With the funds
raised — over $600 — OC Anti-Frack has
enough money to cover the cost of sending
one or two people to the protest. The rest
of the money will go to Radical Action for
Mountain People’s Survival, a non-profit
with a strong anti-coal stance that is currently working with local volunteers to
help solve the West Virginia water crisis.
According to concert organizer College
sophomore Daniel Goering, RAMPS and
OC Anti-Frack have a strong working relationship; Oberlin students have traveled to
West Virginia to protest in the past, while
RAMPS has brought speakers to campus.
The Appalachian, crunchy-granola
spirit of the benefit extended to the rest of
the concert, which shone with an earnest,
See Folk, page 13

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Experimental Recital Juxtaposes Flute, Sax
Anne Pride-Wilt
Arts Editor
This past Tuesday night, Stull Recital Hall — the performance space that protrudes from the top of Bibbins Hall —
was brightly illuminated and visible from the ground below.
Few realized, however, that inside was an absorbing guest
recital performed by three immensely talented musicians,
two of them alumni. Headlined by flutist Élise Roy, OC ’09,
and saxophonist Matthew Younglove and featuring three
compositions by Kurt Isaacson, OC ’09, the experimental
recital combined classical instrumentation with innovative musicality and electronic modulation for a fascinating
performance.
The recital began with no introduction. Roy stepped quietly behind her multiple music stands and raised her flute
for bokeh, composed by Isaacson in 2009. The experimental
nature of the composition immediately became clear as Roy
whistled and blew into her flute with no discernible patterns of rhythm or pitch. Already idiosyncratic, the piece’s
strangeness was heightened when Roy’s solo flute was manipulated and looped such that while attendees saw only
one performer, they heard three or four playing at once.
The speakers in the concert hall added depth to the sound,
throwing it around the room and creating the illusion of
ghost performers positioned around the stage. Toward the
end of the piece, Roy held her mouth away from the flute
and vocalized steadily, mimicking what she had just been
playing on her flute. The effect was unexpected, eerie and
disorienting in the way only experimental music can be, but
also completely mesmerizing.
The second piece, Inflorescence IV, was composed by Assistant Professor of Composition Josh Levine and performed
by Roy and Gabrielle Roderer on flute. Although played with
a similar multiplying effect as the opening piece, it required
even more coordination, as the flutists had to synchronize
with each other. Roy and Roderer had no rhythmic cues they
could use to coordinate their playing, so they had to pay
close attention to what the other was doing. The pair’s odd,
jerky movements complemented the music, although it was
unclear whether they were intentional.

Roy returned to the stage solo for the third piece, a performance of composer Brian Ferneyhough’s 1970 work Cassandra’s Dream Song. Roy reached her apex in this performance, handling the notoriously complicated score with
apparent ease. Cassandra’s Dream Song is more nightmare
than dream, and Roy conveyed this unnerving quality masterfully. At times, Roy tapped on her flute for makeshift percussion, emphasizing the unorthodox use of instruments
that characterized the whole recital.
The evening’s other headliner, Younglove on saxophone,
finally joined Roy for the fourth piece, Isaacson’s color
boundaries and plastic action / red ground behind your eyelids. Roy switched to piccolo for this piece to better contrast
with the deeper range of the saxophone. Much like the flute
during the rest of the recital, Younglove’s saxophone often
sounded little like the traditional conception of the instrument, only occasionally breaking loose with the saxophone’s
characteristic brassiness. Instead, Younglove played with
more restraint — except during the recurring sections, when
he blasted the sax like a jarring fire alarm, a blaring sound
over which Roy’s piccolo danced lightly to create a strange,
pleasant counterpoint.
For the recital’s closing piece, Younglove returned for a
solo rendition of Isaacson’s shreds of dirty gray assembled
in a hurry, disdained by the moon. This piece recalled bokeh
keenly, as it also employed plenty of electronic modulation.
Younglove used a pedal on the floor to manipulate the sound
while he played his saxophone. While the piece was comparatively less interesting that the rest of the program and a
solo by Younglove was an odd choice to end a recital so dependent on Roy, the bookend quality of bokeh and the closer
satisfied overall.
Experimental music can be polarizing, but the talented
Roy, Younglove and Roderer were able to perform so mesmerizingly that even proponents of more traditional music
couldn’t fail to be sucked in. While the aesthetics may be
endlessly debated, the talent onstage was certain, and the
difficulty of the night’s selections only accentuated displays
of that talent. Stull Recital Hall is an intimate space that
makes a recital like last Tuesday’s even more intense — just
a few gifted performers and their strange, stunning music.

On the Record: Claire Morton and Elise Moltz, Collaborative Art Organizers
Conservatory junior Elise Moltz and College
seniors Sally Decker and Claire Morton joined
forces last semester to help put on a collaborative art presentation titled ZOO. They’re back
in the collaborative art game this semester, but
fans of ZOO can expect to see a few changes.
Though Sally wasn’t present, the Review sat
down with Claire and Elise on Tuesday afternoon for coffee and a discussion on the importance of collaborative arts in the Oberlin
community.
What is your project and how did it get
started?
Elise Moltz: Last semester, [double-degree
senior Sam Phillips-Corwin] and I wanted to
have an event that would help pull different
artists together [so they could] meet people
they wouldn’t have otherwise and have a venue for multimedia collaborations. … There are
a lot of music concerts that happen and art
gallery showings that happen around campus
— we wanted something where everything
was combined in a different type of space.
What’s the goal of these collaborative
projects? What do you think they add to
the art scene here versus other types of
projects?
Claire Morton: I was just a participant [in
ZOO] last semester and just took on the leadership role. So for me, as a participant, it was
a really unprecedented way for me to meet
other people, and I think that the group of
people that actually came to the event were
people that I would have never … seen at a
gallery opening, and I think vice versa. There
were probably some people in the Conservatory who participated in the event who met
people in the College they would have never
been introduced to. Also, I think it’s a unique
opportunity … having a ton of different installations or performance-based works in the
same place at the same time. There are a lot

of events where there are discrete pieces that
are happening but not really all at once, so
it was a really interesting mesh of all these
things happening.
EM: We sort of wanted it to be a little bit
mystical, a little bit strange. I mean, you walk
into this space, and you’re not really sure
what’s happening … and you’ve never really been to an event like it. But everywhere
you go there’s art, and everywhere you look
there’s something different. I think it made
people really curious and really excited to be
in a different space like that. And also getting
all of these people together who might not
have met each other, I think it really allows
for bigger projects to happen. Because musicians know other musicians and can make
really big pieces of music, and visual artists
know other visual artists and can make large
pieces of visual work. But when they get together you can make something that can
really get at a concept, get at an aesthetic in
all of these different directions, and that really makes a much larger and hopefully more
meaningful project.
Claire, you mentioned that you were
a participant in ZOO last semester. What
made you want to step up your role?
CM: Elise approached me after the event,
mainly because … she wanted to have representatives from all the different sources
or media that could help lead the event. So
I’m representing the Art department more
so, whereas [Elise is] representing the Conservatory, and Sally is representing Creative
Writing or more academic departments. It
was also just to take the stress off of [Elise]
because it was a kind of crazy, huge thing to
organize. So it was just more people involved.
EM: Especially because we have about
twice as many artists as last year … I think
people knew more about it this semester and
were excited about seeing it again, so we have

From left, College seniors Sally Decker and Claire Morton and Conservatory junior Elise Moltz
scout out a potential location for an as-yet-unnamed collaborative art project. Last semester, the
trio worked on ZOO, a similar project on which they hope to improve this semester with more
artists and a unifying theme.
Courtesy of Delwin Campbell

a lot more participation. A lot more people to
organize.
Is there anything you want to share
with artists who might be interested in
getting involved?
EM: Because we’re just starting, we’re not
closed off to having artists join us … They
can feel free to contact us if they’re interested
in joining because we’re still sort of in that
stage of things … I’d also like to say that this
is something that we feel really benefits the
artists — everyone gets really excited about
it, people get to explore things they wouldn’t
have otherwise, and we definitely want to see
it continue after all of us have left.

Are you all graduating this spring?
CM: I’m graduating.
EM: And Sally is. I’ll be here another year,
so I really want to continue [these events
with] younger people and possibly have this
become some organization that can become
chartered.
CM: If anything, I also think it’s really important for dialogue, it starts dialogue between students. Even if it doesn’t continue, it’s
a way to make things happen, make people
start thinking of ways of coming together.
Interview by Nora Kipnis
Arts editor

captive throughout his entire set.
His covers were slightly less enticing,
however, mainly because the lyrics and
the music didn’t work together as perfectly as they had in the first two songs.
This slight dip in the evening’s energy
paved the way for what was arguably the
high point of the night, the three-piece
folk outfit The Dads, made up of College sophomore Alex Chalmers on guitar
and vocals, double-degree sophomore
Amy Jackson-Smith also singing, and
College sophomore tambourine player
Josh Harlow. The band performed folk
hits of yesteryear with such energy and
gusto that the whole of the lounge was
bursting with dancing and the echoes of
people singing along. While Harlow was
frequently overzealous, going for crazy
rhythms and wild rolls when the music
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– demanded simplicity, it did little to dull
the band’s overall effect, especially durThe Appalachian, crunchy-graing their amazing cover of “Bow Down
nola spirit of the benefit extend- and Die” by The Almighty Defenders.
Here, a spell seemed to come over the
ed to the rest of the concert,
room, and people sng their hearts out
which shone with an earnest,
as the band played the chorus over and
over, building until the excitement in the
laid-back and, at times, actually
room felt like it was going to explode.
Appalachian vibe.
The last two bands brought the ex–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– citement down a notch to usher in a
hushed and relaxed tone for the final
and excellent melodies. He closed with a sets, playing more down-to-earth folky
song he wrote as his Winter Term proj- tunes. College senior Tom Rathe played
ect, called “The Shining Palace Built on the first set, an around-the-fireplace
the Sand.” Although its global warming style performance that left the tired and
warning started off cliché, it quickly hit tipsy crowd drifting back and forth in
its stride and continued building until their seats, lulled into a comfortable pilits unexpectedly moving climax. Arp was low of depressing tunes. Following him
a hard act to follow, so it was a refresh- was a two-piece band featuring College
ing relief when the next performer — the senior Haley Schurman on banjo and
banjo-playing College sophomore Mattis Austin Meyers on guitar, closing out the
Deutch, aka Matches — took things in an night with a more impressionistic style
entirely different direction.
of folk, their slightly discordant voices
Deutch played two Appalachian folk painting a psychedelic picture. They
songs and two Dirty Projectors songs. The were interesting, although unfortunately
first pair brought a fascinating change burdened by the final slot, as the concert
of pace, with the hypnotizing twangs had stretched to the two-hour mark by
of the banjo contrasting intensely with the time they began. Many people left beDeutch’s high-pitched voice to create a fore the set. Those who stayed, however,
transformative soundscape straight out were treated to one final experiment in a
of old-time Appalachia. With the crowd night full of absolutely wonderful music.
swaying gently, Deutch kept his audience
laid-back and, at times, actually Appalachian vibe. For an Anti-Frack concert,
there was little sermonizing and only one
or two songs about environmental disaster or impending doom. The rest of the
concert was a constant reminder of the
abundant talent of Oberlin’s student body,
as each performance improved upon the
last and frequently provided better material than the songs on which they were
based. The performances started with
double-degree first-year Hayden Arp, a
singer-songwriter who had a deft hand
with the acoustic guitar and fantastic set
of vocal cords. He started with a few covers before delving into his own material,
which impressed with poetic songwriting

Continued from page 10
so the trio played on, trying different riffs, playing with the bass and layering traditional jazz and
pop melodies with experimental, atonal lines. The three had great chemistry and obviously felt
comfortable with each other as they shared a giggle onstage or reached past each other’s arms to
mess with the soundboard. When they especially enjoyed a line they were creating, huge smiles
broke out across their faces and their whole bodies pulsed along to the music.
Toward the beginning of the show, the audience shared the band’s excitement. However, little
by little, the band’s repetitive, experimental sounds drove many from the dance floor.
A loyal handful of dancers and listeners remained until the end of the show, and those lucky
few received the benefit of experiencing the array of visuals presented by double-degree seniors
Charlie Abbott and Devin Frenze, which ended up being an understated highlight of the show.
Abbott’s and Frenze’s visuals included a diverse array of shapes, colors and themes, which often
appeared in the form of a kaleidoscope of morphing crystals. “If it’s not weird, you can hit me in
the face,” Abbott said jokingly before the show. It was definitely weird, but the interactions of the
graphics with the music and the constant additions of new material kept the visuals fresh and
enthralling.
Abbott and Frenze are members of Real Boy Digital, an artist collective founded in 2013 by
Conservatory senior Myles Emmons to enable collaboration between artists to put on shows
that feature projection and video art alongside other media. Recently, the group started looking
for more professional collaborations, and Abbott was excited to work with Archie Pelago. “I met
them [the night before the show] and showed them some of my work, and they put us on the
show. I’m also a big fan of their music and especially their style of performance (with saxophone,
cello and electronics), and I was super excited to play with them,” he said in an email.
The collective members use a programming language called Jitter to create the visuals. The
different visual themes exist on different systems called patches, and Abbott and Frenze control
how the objects in each patch interact with each other. During a show, the performers move
through the patch, and their path determines how the visuals appear on the screen. Abbott described the movement through the patch as “flying through space,” traveling through a video
game or playing a “visual instrument.” Said Abbott, “I like to think of [it] as an amalgamation of
all three of those ideas.”
The originality and improvisational quality of the Real Boy Digital visuals made them the perfect accompaniment for Archie Pelago, which renders its songs uniquely at each performance.
The graphics shed light on the music, but also could have easily stood alone. Although many
audience members didn’t stay for the chaotic, experimental sound, they should have stayed, if
only for Real Boy Digital’s work.

Sports

Page 14

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Phoebe Hammer and Simone Brodner

This week the Review sat down
with senior women’s lacrosse captains Phoebe Hammer and Simone
Brodner to discuss how the team has
changed over the years, what it’s like
to be seniors and how they feel about
Kenyon College’s mascot.

hard, but at the same time we’re realizing that we’re the new core.
What are the best and worst
parts about being on the lacrosse
team?
SB: Playing lacrosse is a really
unique opportunity. It’s cool to realize [that] I got to participate in
NCAA competition, I got to play
sports and I had all these wild experiences that a lot of people never
had. The worst part has been a lot of
psychological pressure to perform,
especially with our last coach.

What are your expectations
for this season?
Simone Brodner: I think this is
the best we’ve ever looked at this
time in my years here — and it is
hard to say because we don’t know
how other teams in our conference
have been preparing — but I feel
really good about our upcoming
games. We have a lot of new talent,
and I think our new coach is doing a
really good job.
Phoebe Hammer: It’s great, because this year no one sucks. There’s
not that person that when they go
in, you’re like, ‘OK, we’re going to
lose.’ Everyone’s really good. We have
a lot of depth.
What are some ways you’d like
to improve on last season?
PH: We’re such a completely different team than last season. Less
than half of us were on the team last
year. We have nine new freshmen, a
brand-new coach and a brand-new
assistant. Completely different offense, completely different defense.
I don’t think you can even compare
it, except that we’re going to be way
better.
This is your first season with
Lynda McCandlish. How are
things going to be different under
her watch?
SB: She has high expectations,
but she’s really clear about them. She
sets the bar high because she’s accustomed to a high level of play, but

Phoebe Hammer and Simone Brodner
she’s very reasonable. The kinds of
drills that she runs all seem to really
make sense in terms of game play.
She’s also just a cool person, and I
think it’s easy for us to relate to her.
PH: Well first of all, she’s not a
crazy psycho, which is awesome. She
has a great balance between being a
great coach and really pushing us,
but also knowing that we’re humans
and that we also have a life outside
of lacrosse. She went to Northwestern [University] too; she’s a badass.
Her stick skills are so good, we just
like watching her play sometimes.
How has the team changed
during your four years at Oberlin?
PH: We’ve had five different assistant coaches and three different
head coaches since we’ve been here.
Every time it happens, a coach has
a completely different system. Lacrosse here has been such a battle,
emotionally and physically. Every
semester was a new surprise. We’re

really lucky in that we have a good
core of seniors that have all pushed
through, and we’ve all been through
it together.
What’s it like being seniors
and team captains?
SB: It’s really cool. It’s definitely
an honor, and the best part about
it is that it’s an opportunity to influence the culture of the team and
keep it the way that it’s been. I’ve
always felt a huge sense of support,
and the loving nature of the team
has always been really positive and
a really great experience. It’s nice to
be able to keep that going and do the
things that seniors in the past have
done for me for this year’s freshmen.
PH: I just remember looking up
to the seniors when I was a freshman and thinking, they knew so
much about Oberlin, with lacrosse
and with life. For both of us, being a
captain some of it is on the field, but
90 percent of it is being there for our

teammates. Some of the freshmen
say they’re scared of me, but they’re
not. I’m the least scary person.
How are the first-years looking
thus far?
SB: I really like all of them as people, and it’s been a ton of fun getting
to know them.
PH: They’re just great and they’re
all really good lacrosse players. All of
our freshmen are really good — better than me, basically. I’m like, ‘Holy
crap, I need to get my act together so
I can still start.’
Is it difficult watching teammates and friends graduate? Do
you ever feel like something is
missing at the beginning of the
season?
PH: I think everyone’s core is the
first team they played with coming
in as a freshman. The class above us
was a big class and were some of our
best friends, so it’s definitely been

PH: Worst part is that I’ve been to
about two TGIFs in my life because
we always have practice from 4:30 to
6:30 when the weather is nice. The
happiest day of my life at Oberlin is
the day that we beat Allegheny [College], my sophomore year. I really felt
that I was a part of something that
was bigger than myself.
Which game are you most excited for, and who is your biggest
rival?
PH: I think all of us have a different biggest rival. For the senior class,
I think it’s Kenyon [College], because
we’ve come so close to beating them
for the last three years. We’re not Kenyon’s biggest rival; they think we’re
a joke a little bit. That’s why it’s going to be even better when we beat
them. Whose mascot is the Ladies,
anyway?
SB: Beating Kenyon would be
awesome. I’m also looking forward
to my senior day game. I’m going to
cry.
Internew by Nate Levinson,
Sports editor
Photo by Zach Harvey

— Men’s Basketball —

Yeomen Season Ends with Loss to Wooster
Michaela Puterbaugh
The men’s basketball team ended its season in the first round of the playoffs with a
89-56 loss against The College of Wooster
Fighting Scots. The win advances the Scots
to the next round of the North Coast Athletic
Conference playoffs.
The season ending loss was the Yeomen’s
third consecutive defeat in a stretch that
included a 63–90 loss on senior night to the
Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops.
“I just wish we could have gotten off to a
little better start, especially for the seniors.
It would have been nice for them to walk off
the court after our first sub and feel a little
bit better about how that started,” said Head
Coach Isaiah Cavaco.
For seniors Geoff Simpson, Trey Levy, Emmanuel Lewis and Derrick Sant, the loss was
especially disappointing, as it was their last
time playing on their home court. Fortunately, Simpson and Lewis ended their careers on
a high note, as they both scored in double figures — scoring 19 and 11 points, respectively.
While reflecting back on the loss, Simpson
agreed with his coach. “It’s tough to go down
by so much at the beginning of the game and
have to fight back.”
The Yeomen also struggled against
Wooster during their last regular season
game. Although Oberlin took the lead early in
the game, the Scots seized control and kept

their double-digit lead for the remainder of
the contest.
“We turned the ball over too much, and
we just didn’t make our open shots. We got
the looks we wanted, but we just didn’t make
them work,” said first-year Jack Poyle, who
led the team with 14 points.
However, Saturday’s loss provided an opportunity for the Yeomen to make adjustments before they played the Scots again on
Tuesday in the opening night of the playoffs.
“I felt good going into Tuesday’s game.
It helps having played them Saturday. We
thought we had a good feel for what they
wanted to do and what we needed to do to
win,” Simpson said.
Specifically, Cavaco said that the team
needed to handle exchanges more effectively.
However, despite the team’s strategy, the
Yeomen came up short. The team fought to
tie the game at 9–9 in the early going, and
then to maintain a single digit-deficit early
in the game, but Wooster pulled ahead in the
second half.
Although these past games have been
unsuccessful for the Yeomen, Simpson was
excited to be named NCAC player of the
week for Feb. 17. In addition to his NCAC accolades, Simpson secured a spot in Oberlin
history as the 11th all-time scorer, with 1,255
career points.
“Being named player of the week was a
great honor, as is my spot on the scoring

list. I attribute it to the great opportunities I’ve had at Oberlin and all the hard
work I’ve put in over the course of my career,” Simpson said.
The Yeomen ended their season with a
record of 7–19 and 4–14 in the conference.
Despite losing a talented group of seniors, Coach Cavaco has high hopes for
next season.

“I look forward to our young guys
[who] have played a lot of minutes coming
back with a better understanding of what
it takes to win, not just be on the court.
Obviously Geoff and EJ graduating is going to leave a big hole, but I am excited to
see who’s going to step up and be the next
guy [to] fill those spots.”

Senior guard Geoff Simpson drives to the hoop against Ohio Wesleyan University. The Yeomen
finished their season with a 7–19 record.
Lilly Day

Sports

The Oberlin Review, Febrary 28, 2014

Page 15

— Women’s Basketball —

Yeowomen Fall to Bishops in Season Finale
Grace Barlow
In the coming months, Philips gym will be a lot
quieter without the noise of cheering basketball
fans. The Yeowomen ended their season Tuesday
night after a tough fight against Ohio Wesleyan
University in the first round of the North Coast
Athletic Conference tournament. The loss to
OWU came after two hard-fought battles against
Ohio Wesleyan and the Wittenberg University
Tigers in the final leg of their regular conference
season.
Oberlin entered their final regular season
game against the Tigers hungry for a victory. A
win would have given them a total of ten victories, a record the Yeowomen have not seen since
2004.
With 11 minutes and 50 seconds left in the
game, the Yeowomen reduced the Tigers’ lead to
a mere six points at 52–58. However, the Tigers
powered through and added 20 points on the
board to seal the victory for Wittenberg.
Sophomore Lindsey Bernhardt led the Yeowomen with 19 points throughout the game. The
loss against the Tigers left the team at 9–17 overall and 4–12 in the conference, the same result as
the 2012-2013 season.
However, their conference record didn’t dampen the Yeowomen’s spirits as they entered Tuesday night’s game against the Battling Bishops.
“When it comes to the conference tournament, records go out the window. Everyone is
0–0. The name of the game is to survive and advance,” said Head Coach Kerry Jenkins.
The team carried the 0–0 mentality into the
quarterfinals of the conference tournament,
where they started off with an impressive 8–0
lead against Ohio Wesleyan. The Yeowomen

trailed by just two points as the team entered the
locker room at halftime.
Junior Christina Marquette added an impressive 21 points and 17 rebounds, while Bernhardt
lead the team again with 23 points. Ultimately,
the Yeowomen fell to Ohio Wesleyan University
81–72.
Despite maintaining last season’s record,
sophomore Caroline Hamilton suggested that
there was improvement this season.
“The win column doesn’t do us justice; we’ve
been competitive in every single game,” said
Hamilton, who finished the season with a total of
111 points.
Hamilton believes that the Yeowomen’s competitive edge stems from the team’s new attitude.
“Every person genuinely wanted to get better,”
she said. “Oberlin is no longer the team that other
teams look at as a definite win.”
Bernhardt is looking forward to the team’s
success in future seasons.
“We have eight returners and some very talented freshmen,” said the sophomore, who finished the season with 361 points. “It looks like we
have a very bright future ahead of us.”
While the team is losing three seniors — Allison Gannon, Lillian Jahan and Malisa Hoak — it
is will look to first-year Eleanor Van Buren and
sophomores Katie Lucaites and Caitlyn Grubb
to fill their shoes. Both Lucaites and Grubb have
been out this season due to injuries, so their return from the bench next season will be a welcome one.
Jahan, who contributed 17 points in Tuesday’s
loss, felt that, despite the score, the Yeowomen
stayed competitive until the final buzzer. “Our
final game was an unforgettable end to an incredible four years.”

Tennis Attempts to Bounce Back
from Rough Loss to Cleveland State
Sloane Garelick
The past two weeks have left the men’s tennis
team with two big home wins and two sound defeats
on the road. Last Thursday, the Yeomen shut out the
Heidelberg University Student Princes at home, winning 9–0.
“I think we played at a much higher level than we
had been playing and the matchups were in our favor, so a lot of the matches went our way,” said Head
Coach Eric Ishida.
There were all-around great performances from
each player in both the doubles and singles play.
The Yeomen were dominant in their doubles
matches. At the #1 spot, sophomore Callan Louis and
senior Charlie Marks won 8–2. The first-year dynamic duo of Ian Paik and Abraham Davis earned an 8–3
win at No. 2. Paik and Davis each won individually
as well, Paik with a 6–0 and 6–1 defeat of Benjamin
Moore at No. 3, and Davis with a 6–0 and 6–0 victory
over Tyler Flickinger at No. 4. Both Paik and Davis
have now won five of their last six matches.
“I think it’s important to go into every match with
intensity. When you get to harder matches you’re
mentally prepared in the same way, and you just
go out there and play with the same intensity,” said
Davis.
Intensity was exactly what Coach Ishida hoped
to see from the Yeomen in their battle against
Heidelberg.
“In that match we knew that we were favored to
win, but we actually had a few team goals set to focus
on,” said Ishida. “We wanted to attack second serves
and we wanted to appear at net more than a typical
match, which allowed us to play an aggressive game
and really kept the guys humbled, grounded and
focused.”
Other triumphs from the Heidelberg match included sophomore Brandon McKenna’s 6–1 and
6–2 victory over Dan Driscoll at No. 6 and first–
year Lucas Brown’s 6–2 and 6–3 win over Matt
McDivitt at No. 5.

“I was happy with how we did overall, taking care
of Heidelberg and getting both Brandon and Lucas
their first wins of the season,” said Paik.
Ishida and the Yeomen hoped to carry this same
level of performance into the match against the Division I Vikings of Cleveland State University last
Sunday. Although the Yeomen came up short with
a loss of 0–7, Ishida was pleased with how the team
performed.
“We wanted to test our doubles and see what our
volleying level and net play was. We also wanted to
see if we could sustain long rallies with them,” said
Ishida. “I think we struggled with it, but we were trying to do the right things and I was very happy with
the result.”
The players also recognized their overall accomplishments despite the difficult matchup against
Cleveland State. “I was happy with the way we competed. We kept our intensity up even through the
more one-sided matches,” said Paik.
“When someone is that good and pushes you, you
realize things you need to work on and things you
mentally need to do to compete a little bit better in
the matches,” said Davis.
With these two matches behind them, the Yeomen
look to the rest of the season, and their upcoming
match against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops on
March 8. The Bishops defeated the Yeomen 4–5 in the
conference tournament last year, so this will be an
especially significant game for returning players and
Ishida.
“I think we need to focus on just being intense and
making sure that we’re outworking our opponents.
And if we do that then we’ll be successful,” said Ishida.
The Yeomen are now 4–2 for the spring season and
are looking ahead with high expectations and goals.
“We can take the experience of playing Heidelberg
to help keep our intensity up through all of our other
matches, including the upcoming Ohio Wesleyan
match,” said Paik. “I think our team is heading in the
right direction and isn’t that far off from the top programs in the region and nation.”

Editorial: Barbie’s Plastic
Perfection Is Not the Ideal
Continued from page 16

models. For instance, Alex Morgan is one of my favorite soccer players on the United States Women’s National Team,
and her photo spread in this year’s swimsuit edition did not
prompt me to discredit her abilities on the pitch.
But Barbie is not Alex Morgan, who is a living and breathing human and has proven to be a positive role model for
many young, aspiring soccer players. Unlike the cover’s false
heroine, Morgan started playing club soccer when she was
14 years old, much later than most elite soccer players, and
graduated from the University of California, Berkeley a semester early with a degree in political economy. While she
may not have as extensive a résumé as Barbie, Morgan has
imparted more valuable lessons to young athletes than the
doll who beat her out for the cover — something Sports Illustrated should have considered when it dedicated its highly
visible swimsuit edition cover to a physiological anomaly.
Barbie has no physical flaws. She has long legs, sculpted
arms and an even tan. Her makeup and hair are always done,
and her outfits always match. She is a toy with an unrealistic body, not a role model. Nicole Rodgers, editor-in-chief
of Role/Reboot, an online magazine that focuses on gender
roles, said it best: “Featuring a plastic doll as an object of
admiration and desire feels like a slap in the face.”
Humans are not plastic. Young girls should not look at
Barbie on the cover of Sports Illustrated and aspire to achieve
her unattainable paradigm of perfection. The swimsuit issue
has come under fire for promoting unrealistic standards of
beauty, but featuring a toy on the cover is one step too far.
Not only is this unhealthy because it is impossible, but
also because beauty comes in many less boring forms. Barbie’s “perfect” body is modeled after one specific standard
of beauty that we should not all strive to achieve. Instead
of epitomizing Barbie’s traditional and fake beauty, Sports
Illustrated should move towards celebrating the various incarnations of beauty.

Sports
The Oberlin Review

With eight days until the season officially commences, the women’s lacrosse team is busy preparing for its upcoming attempt at a conference title.
The Yeowomen welcome nine rookies this year
alongside new head coach Lynda McCandlish and
new assistant coach Rosie Knisley.
Included in the group of first-years are influential newcomers Alexa L’Insalata and Sara Phister.
The two fill important gaps in the roster as key
goalkeeper and skilled drawer respectively. Junior
co-captain Kate Hanick believes that this will add
a much-needed depth to the already talented roster.
“We have a really good goalie this year and a
solid defense. I think that all the gaps have been
filled with strong underclassmen. Phister also wins
draws every time. I’m really excited to see it all come
together during games,” Hanick said.
L’Insalata comes in with a wide breadth of experience, including accolades from high school, such

as leading her team to a conference championship
as senior captain and earning the title of an Academic All-American the same year.
“It’s nice because we are all in the same boat,”
said L’Insalata regarding her fellow first-year teammates. “We are all looking forward to our first collegiate game, but there are a lot of nerves that go
with that.”
Phister, a native of Phoenix, AZ, also enters her
first season with a handful of accomplishments
under her belt. A two-time Academic All-American
and U.S. Lacrosse Jackie Pitts Award winner, Phister
graduated high school with over 200 goals to her
name. She will add an edge to the Yeowomen’s attack this spring.
“I am so excited to continue learning from my
coaches and teammates. I have never learned so
much about the game in such a small period of
time,” she said.
Phister attributes her new knowledge of the
game to McCandlish’s tremendous coaching experience and her ability to build teams with winning
records. During her tenure as a collegiate lacrosse

Junior midfielder Kate Hanick sprints down the field during a 2013 game. The Yeowomen open their
season on the road against Otterbein University on March 8.
Courtesy of Erik Andrews

player at Northwestern University, McCandlish
helped lead her team to an NCAA title in 2005 and
2006. She was part of the most successful women’s
lacrosse program in school history at the time of
her graduation. Since then, she has successfully
coached several different lacrosse programs, including her own high school’s team.
“Playing lacrosse at Northwestern was an incredible experience. I’m hoping to bring a lot of
what I learned there to Oberlin. Part of our success
at NU was due to our work ethic, positive mindset
and risk-taking on the field. We’re trying to build
our program around those same values,” McCandlish said.
With her winning record and strong coaching
techniques, Hanick believes that McCandlish will
continue to contribute new coaching techniques
and styles that will ultimately improve the quality of
play for the women’s lacrosse team. She appreciates
McCandlish’s low-key attitude and believes that her
coaching style makes the team want to work hard.
Hanick, a veteran Yeowoman, will enter her
penultimate season with two strong years behind
her. In 2012, Hanick earned her spot on the AllConference Honorable Selection roster and added
14 goals for the team last season. Hanick remains
a force for the Yeowomen and foresees even more
success for the Yeowomen with a young and talented roster this spring.
She will co-captain with three members of the
graduating class: Phoebe Hammer, Simone Brodner
and Sarah Orbuch. The Yeowomen, who held a 4–11
record last season, are hoping to clinch a conference title this year and make their way to the NCAA
tournament.
The first non-conference game of the season will
be held in Westerville, OH, against Otterbein University Saturday, March 8. The Yeowomen will kick
off official North Coast Athletic Conference play
against long-time rival Kenyon College at home Saturday, March 21.
“It’s our goal to be a contender in our conference
tournament this year,” McCandlish said. “We have
a very athletic, deep pool of talent on our team. If
we stay healthy, focused and positive, I think we can
surprise some teams this year and compete with
any team in our conference.”

— Women’s Frisbee —

Preying Manti Kick It Into High Gear Before First Tournament
Sarena Malsin

“There’s a spread of ability, but
that’s good — it bodes well for
the program if we can keep all
types of players coming in,” Fulton added. “It astounds me how
into it people get and how excited they are to come to practice
and learn. That’s what we really
like to see.”
The new setup doesn’t change
the Manti’s constant goal of cohesion. “We’re working on getting to know everyone’s playing
style, to know what everyone’s
capable of,” said senior captain
and Review Production Manager
Rosie Black. “To do that, we want
all players to be as committed as
possible.”
Even with the advent of split
practices, the Manti will continue to have practices with
both teams to “keep the cohesive
Manti unit together,” according
to Reach.
The Manti look forward to
their Nashville tournament and

two tournaments over spring
break in Southsboro, GA, and
Princeton, NJ, both of which will
host the teams for the first time.
The teams are anxious to return to Nationals, and the Manti’s
captains are ready to put in the
work to make that goal a reality.
“We’re going to try things we
haven’t done to surprise teams
we’ve played a lot before,” said
Black.
Before Nationals, the Manti
are looking to take on every
challenge as a team; including
its tournament–heavy season.
“You grow [as a team] so
much in one tournament, as opposed to one month of practice,”
said Fulton.
“I’m excited about just getting out on the field — nothing
is better than going outside and
having the whole field in front
of you and six of your fellow
Manti on the line beside you,”
Blenko said.

In honor of the 50th
anniversary of the Sports
Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the magazine is going
plastic. Last week, Mattel
and Sports Illustrated announced that they’d collaborate to put Barbie on
the cover and place a fourpage advertising feature
inside the magazine. Their
campaign is titled Barbie
#Unapologetic.
Mattel dubbed the campaign #Unapologetic after
Sports Illustrated received
criticism for featuring an
inanimate object on its
cover. Barbie is “unapologetic” for her star-studded
life, which began in 1959.
Since her creation, Barbie
has worked hundreds of
jobs — from paratrooper
to ambassador for world
peace and from princess to
hairdresser to McDonald’s
cashier. Now, she can add
Sports Illustrated swimsuit
model to her résumé.
While Mattel claims
that this campaign “gives
Barbie and her fellow legends an opportunity to
own who they are and
celebrate what they have
done,” when I see a doll in
a swimsuit, with perfectly
formed boobs to match an
impeccably sculpted butt,
I wonder what workout
routine she follows.
The idea that there is
a plastic toy pictured on
the cover of SI is a little
creepy, but at least there
was no complaining at
the photo shoot. Swimsuit
Issue fans can also sleep
soundly knowing that Barbie’s photos were not retouched. The amazon is as
perfect on camera as she is
in real life.
Although I have never
been a huge fan of Sports
Illustrated or its Swimsuit
Issue, I’ve never taken
issue with its choice of
See Editorial, page 15

the trash —
r in
r
pe

e or compost
ycl
it
ec

The Preying Manti women’s
Ultimate Frisbee team has split
into two teams this spring, but
both teams are tirelessly preparing for their first tournament, Music City Mash-Up in
Nashville, TN, on March 8-9,
with weekly lifting and track
practices.
The A and B teams saw
mixed success last year, in part
because the Manti could not
fill both rosters. But with many
first-years joining the team this
fall, the Manti now boast a roster with 30 players, plenty to fill
both teams.
“The optimal team number is
14 to 15; 30 people do not get to
play as much as they want to,”
said sophomore Jessica Hubert.
Sophomore A-Team captain
Allison Fulton said she prefers
the two-team format. “It’s hard
to take 30 people to a tourna-

ment and not have everyone
play — that means not everyone
is growing as players,” she said.
Junior B-Team captain Sarah Blenko agreed with Fulton.
“The addition of a B team takes
off a lot of the pressure of playing with people who have been
playing Ultimate for years,” she
said.
Even with a shaky start to
its last spring season, the team
made it to the College DIII National Championships.
“It would be wonderful if
we could build on that momentum and continue to compete on higher levels,” Blenko
said.
Even though the first-years
are new to the team, not all of
them are new to the game.
“There’s a mix of freshmen
that have been playing for years
and ones that never played before orientation,” said senior
Sarah Reach.